The FAQ Forum

This article answers the following questions about XML technology:

What is XML?
Who developed XML?
What are the key benefits of XML?
What are the applications of XML?
What are the benefits of using Java technology with XML?
What kind of XML support is there in the Java 2 platform?
What kinds of optional packages (formerly called standard extensions) are there for XML?
Is XML supported in J2EE?

Q. What is XML?

A. XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is a universal syntax for describing and structuring data independent from the application logic. XML supports data interchange in a networked environment and document publishing to multiple media and devices.

Q. Who developed XML?

A. XML is an activity of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The XML development effort started in 1996 led by Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, who continues to chair the XML coordination group today. Bosak organized a diverse group of markup language experts, from industry to academia, to develop a simplified version of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) for the Web. In February 1998, XML 1.0 specification became a recommendation by the W3C.

Q. What are the key benefits of XML?

A. XML promises to simplify and lower the cost for data exchange and publishing in a Web environment. XML is a text-based syntax that is portable and reusable across different platforms and devices, and can even be understood by humans. An XML document is also flexible and extensible, allowing new tags to be added without breaking an existing document structure. Through Unicode support, XML also provides global language support.

Q. What are the applications of XML?

A. XML is poised to simplify and standardize business-to-business information interchange over the Web. Specifically, XML will play a prominent role in Web applications such as e-commerce, supply-chain integration, and other business-to-business services. XML also supports media-independent publishing, allowing documents to be written once and published in different formats and for different devices.

Q. What are the benefits of using Java technology with XML?

A. The Java and XML technologies are complementary; the Java technology provides the platform-independent, maintainable code that is needed to process platform-independent XML data. In addition, the Java technology offers a substantial productivity boost for software developers compared to programming languages such as C or C++. Using XML and Java together, developers can build powerful, platform-independent Web applications more quickly and at a lower cost.

Q. What kind of XML support is there in the Java 2 platform?

A. Sun is delivering first-class XML support in the Java 2 platform through the Java Community Process. Building on the synergistic interaction between Java and XML, the XML support in the Java platform will ease the development of XML-oriented e-commerce and enterprise applications, provide better interoperability between vendor applications, and ultimately, save enterprises development time and money.

Q. What kinds of optional packages (formerly called standard extensions) are there for XML?

A. With industry participation, Sun is working on core, foundational level Java APIs for XML that will ease the development of XML-oriented applications. This core XML functionality will initially provide capabilities for reading and manipulating XML data -- essential for developing any XML-oriented application, such as e-commerce, enterprise application integration, and dynamic publishing. These APIs will be developed completely in the Java programming language and will support, and fully conform, to widely accepted XML standards, including XML 1.0, SAX, DOM Level 1 Core, and XML Namespaces. We are also investigating emerging XML standards, such as XSLT and XQL, for future inclusion in the core Java extension for XML.

The Java Platform group is also working on high-level techniques for connecting XML and Java that will make XML more easily accessible to a wider developer audience. Initially we are looking at ways to bind XML schemas and documents to Java classes and objects. Such a data-binding facility will allow developers to focus their effort on the content and meaning of XML documents rather than on the details of low-level parser APIs.

Q. Is XML supported in the Java 2 Enterprise Edition?

A. XML is an essential component in the Java 2 Enterprise Edition and will be supported throughout J2EE as a means for enabling business-to-business information interchange using XML. For robust, synchronous data messaging, Enterprise JavaBeans technology can be used to create a business service object and the XML content can be sent over the wire using JSP. Currently, JavaServer Pages can be used to generate and consume XML between n-tier servers or between server and client. Java Messaging Service provides a means for asynchonous XML data messaging. In addition, Enterprise JavaBeans uses XML to describe its deployment properties, giving Enterprise JavaBeans data portability in addition to its code portability.

[ This page was updated: Monday, 26-Jul-1999 11:30:15 EDT ]