tech17 |
An
Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored
box format) |
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March
27, 2004 |
- Teach Yourself XML in 21 days (2003) by Steven Holzner:
Day 2
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6:50 am
I read the Day 2 chapter yesterday afternoon and have it yellow
highlighted. Now to make some notes and to follow some of the
examples using XMLSpy. Becoming comfortable with this software
is as important as understanding the ideas.
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Day 2 [p. 43 - 75]
- XMLSpy is mentioned as a good XML editor. [p. 45]
- "Microsoft's Internet Explorer is by far the most powerful
general purpose XML browser available today" [p. 47]
- Explorer is "the only widely available browser that can
use schemas" [p. 47]
- One can use an XML validator to check XML files for both
well-formedness and validity. W3C provides one such (free)
service at http://validator.w3.org/
- "Internet Explorer can also validate documents with XML
schemas" [p. 49]
- "Prologs appear
at the beginning of XML documents, and contain information
about the rest of the document." [p. 58]
- <?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?> is
the first line of an XML file. The line is called an XML
Declaration.
- An XML comment begins
with a <!-- and
ends with a --!>.
Comments should appear outside of markup tags.
- XML processing instructions are
not part of the data markup, but are instructions for the
XML processor (e.g. Internet
Explorer). Processing instructions begin with a <? and
end with a ?>.
A common example is <?xml-stylesheet type = "text/css"
href = "ch01_04.css"?> which connects a cascading style sheet
to the document.
- "Tag names are case-sensitive" [p. 63]
- An XML file must have one element that contains all of
the other elements. This is called the root element.
- An XML element (anything between a start tag and an end
tag) may contain attributes, which must have values. The
values must be in quotes and follow an = symbol. Here is
an example:
<name first = "Dale" last = "Burnett"></name>
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- I have downloaded XMLSpy on a trial basis and am looking
forward to learning to use it effectively.
- I am going to make an effort to use all three of my favorite
browsers (Explorer, Navigator and Opera) until I see that one
is clearly better.
- I will want to test Opera and Navigator with schemas, as
soon as I have a good example ready.
- I have had a quick glance in Explorer but it is not (yet)
obvious how to go about using it to validate an XML document.
- This chapter is primarily about terminology and concepts.
I think I have it under control.
- The next chapter is called "Creating Well-Formed XML Documents".
This sounds like a chapter where I put the ideas I have just
learned into practice. I assume I will be using XMLSpy for
much of this.
- I have spend about an hour on each of the first two chapters,
and have now completed two days work in 2 days.
7:45 am
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- Teach Yourself XML in 21 days (2003) by Steven Holzner:
Day 3
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8:40 am
I have completed reading the Day 3 chapter, making yellow highlights
as I went. Now to make a few serious notes. |
Day 3 [p. 77 - 106]
- "Namespaces give you a way to make sure that one set of
tags will not conflict with another." [p. 92]
- If one identifies a namespace as follows, then one may
use all of the XHTML tag names:
<html xlmns = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang = "en"
lang = "en"
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- Much of the chapter is simply about creating well formed
documents (following proper syntax and nesting of elements.
- I am not totally sure I understand the syntax for identifying
a namespace, but will carry on until I get tripped up.
- Since there are two ways to validate an XML file (Document
Type Definitions) and XML Schemas), and since the latter
is considered more precise, I will try skipping the Day 4
& Day 5 chapters (which describe DTDs) and move to Day 6,
which discusses Schemas.
- Overall, I am pleased with my general understanding so
far. I am also sensing that I am close to reconceptualizing
all of my online course materials into one generic XML structure.
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Reminder: each "Learning" session has
a new web page.
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