Effective XML

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Table of contents

Part 0: Should We Use XML?

The XML Backlash

Don’t Choose XML for

Why do simpler formats fail in practice?

Limited Use Cases

Choose the right tools:

Stay with XML 1.0

Part II: Structure

Allow All XML syntax

Distinguish text from markup

The reverse problem

White space matters

Make structure explicit through markup

Store metadata in attributes

Remember mixed content

What you really want is this:

What people do is this:

Prefer URLs to unparsed entities and notations

Part III: Semantics

Use processing instructions for process-specific content

Processing instructions are not appropriate when:

Include all information in instance documents

Encode binary data using quoted printable and/or Base64

Use namespaces for modularity and extensibility

Reuse XHTML for generic narrative content

Choose the right schema language for the job

Use only what you need

Always use a parser

Layer Functionality

Program to standard APIs

Program to non-standard APIs for ease of development

Read the complete DTD

Navigate with XPath

Validate inside your program with schemas

Part IV: Implementation

Write documents in Unicode

Avoid Vendor Lockin; Beware

Hang on to your relational database

Document Namespaces with RDDL

Pick the correct MIME type

TagSoup Your HTML

Catalog common resources

Compress if space is a problem

Author: Elliotte Rusty Harold

Homepage: http://www.cafeaulait.org/