Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours

Introduction

When someone asks me where to start learning how to program, I always say, "Learn HTML." The software is free, the language is easy to understand, and you can view the results immediately without having to compile the code. Most of this applies to learning XML as well. HTML and XML have the same linguistic "grandfather," so it takes no great leap of insight to understand the basic structure of XML code once you know HTML. Therefore, this book assumes that you're very familiar with HTML.

At the time that this book was being written, Netscape, the second of the two major browsers, was in a state of uncertainty. The company was publicly unclear about the direction it would take after its purchase by AOL, and there was a great deal of ...