WEB: More XML / Great Dane [0831.1998]

Looks like everybody's getting in on the hamlet.xml discussion.

After Jorn complained about all the <LINE></LINE> tags in the script, Bill Humphries (http://www.whump.com) made the point that people don't actually have to type those tags. In fact, we don't even have to see them. He goes on to explain how he uses XML for his site and weblog.

My site also uses XML.. Sort of. I've informally adopted a certain XML format for storing all my document objects. However, when I make my entries, I use a much simpler scheme: a specially formatted date marks the beginning of the object. Then the title. Then the entry, broken into paragraphs by simple line breaks. Finally, I cap off each object with a single period on a line.

A perl script can reformat all my objects as XML that any machine can read.

XML is a storage format. Like a database, you can build a nice user friendly front end for it. You can also "report" on it with stylesheets.

I stand by my earlier appraisal. Go Hamlet!