Chapter 1. Python and XML
Python and XML are two very different animals, each with a rich history. Python is a full-scale programming language that has grown from scripting world roots in a very organic way, through the vision and guidance of Python’s inventor, Guido van Rossum. Guido continues to take into account the needs of Python developers as Python matures. XML, on the other hand, though strongly impacted by the ideas of a small cadre of visionaries, has grown from standards-committee roots. It has seen both quiet adoption and wrenching battles over its future. Why bother putting the two technologies together?
Before the Python/XML combination, there seemed no easy or effective way to work with XML in a distributed environment. Developers were forced to rely on a variety of tools used in awkward combination with one other. We used shell scripting and Perl to process text and interact with the operating system, and then used Java XML API’s for processing XML and network programming. The shell provided an excellent means of file manipulation and interaction with the Unix system, and Perl was a good choice for simple text manipulation, providing access to the Unix APIs. Unfortunately, neither sported a sophisticated object model. Java, on the other hand, featured an object-oriented environment, a robust platform API for network programming, threads, and graphical user interface (GUI) application development. But with Java, we found an immediate lack of text manipulation ...
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