Special Edition Using XML, Second Edition

XML Is a Simple Technology

XML is the Extensible Markup Language, as defined in the XML 1.0 Recommendation published by the W3C. The Recommendation is now in the Second Edition, which exists to correct some simple clerical errors in the first edition—nothing substantive has been changed that would necessitate a new version number.

Markup

At the core, XML is not really a language per se—it is really a meta-language. That is, you don't author documents directly in XML as you might with HTML, but instead you use the rules of XML, which are called XML Vocabularies, to develop your own markup language.

For example, with HTML you might have something that looks like this:

<B>Webster</B><BR> 
<I>123 Fake Street</I>
<I>Chicago, IL 60611</I>

Although ...