On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Vlad Safronov wrote:
> What's the benefits of using XML in building web site with dynamic
> content?
> (web site is a front end to database)
This is off-topic for this list, but I can't resist...
What's the benefit of using XML? You get to buy expensive application
servers! No, that can't be it... You get to buy a bunch of books on XML!
No, that doesn't sound right either... It's an excuse to learn Java! No,
somebody went and wrote a Perl parser... It's a way to store structured
information like a database system, but without all that pesky concurrent
access management and query capability! No, there must be something...
Well, it's from Microsoft, so it must be great! Right?
Okay, I admit there are places where XML is useful. Any place you used to
say "comma separated values" can be s/// with XML and improve the
readability of your data. It makes nice-looking config files too. It's
very handy when you need a format for passing complex data in an OS and
language independent way. It's also handy when you don't know what your
data structure will be before you start, so you can't make a real database
schema for it. Witness the folks at http://www.allaire.com/ who built an
entire product (Spectra) around serializing objects in a single field as
XML. Of course, if you only need to manipulate data using perl, you could
just serialize with Storable and save some space/cycles. It can also be
used when you want to store some structured data but you can't run a real
database for some reason. It definitely beats making up your own addition
to the million or so text-based data formats out there.
Some people like to pull data from a database, turn it into XML as an
intermediary format, and then use something like XSLT to turn it into
HTML. Personally, I don't see a good reason to do this instead of
just using perl's internal data strutcures for your intermediary
format and using something like Template Toolkit (see CPAN) to format
it into HTML. But, it's a matter of taste, and also of portability to
other languages.
Looks I came up with some reasons after all. So go ahead and use it if
you see a fit. Just don't believe anything that a person with a product
to sell tells you about XML. Or anything else. But that's a different
story.
- Perrin
