• XML

  We've been hearing a lot about XML lately. Do any of the explanations in the press make sense to you? The reason they don't is because the people who are writing about it don't use it, don't know anything about it.

  At Armadillo Associates, we KNOW the technology because we USE the technologies. Which is why our high tech public relations pieces actually say meaningful things, even when they describe complicated technologies.

  Take XML for example.

  As with all Internet standards, XML has a ways to go. We of course intended to create an XSL and just thrown the XML at browsers. But, guess what? (Love that Junie B. Jones!). Most browsers would just writhe in agony if we did so. Which means that instead of XSL, we had to write a server-side program to format the pages into HTML. We did it in PHP4. Regardless, it will save hours of boring formatting but, sigh.

  At present we are using Hans Andersen's XML object to provide us with StartElement and EndElement. That's mostly because El Nino has hit California just now and it's stormy (which means incessant brown-outs) and cold and we are too tired and the power keeps going out while we try to parse the PHP tutorials that explain about the tag lists xml_create_parser generates. It's not that we don't like Hans' work, it's just that we want to know more about how PHP does XML.

  Also, it's obvious that processing of XML belongs in C++. If you've got some cash lying around and want to help fund our C++-based XML API, please be in touch. We've got a specification, just can't afford the time to implement it. Sigh.

Computer-based technologies are evolving at an exponential rate. Just when we've figured out what a buzzword means, what one particular technology is good for, either that technology changes or else a new, improved technology emerges. Every choice has benefits and costs. Specifications are promises; not every emerging toolset lives up to its promises. It takes experience with a tool to learn what it does well and what it does not do well.

We have the experience.