XML online training?
March 28, 2006 10:23 AM Subscribe
Want to learn some XML. I've read a few books on theory, now I want to get my hands dirty and was thinking an online training course would be a good plan. Has anyone got any experience of these or have a recommendation to offer - there's a lot to choose from!
What do you mean by "learn" XML? Do you want to something spesific With XML?
XML itself takes about five minutes to learn, the DOM takes a bit more, and then there's XSLT/XSL
Really, I think you need to be a lot more spesific with this question. What do you want to do with it?
posted by delmoi at 10:38 AM on March 28, 2006
XML itself takes about five minutes to learn, the DOM takes a bit more, and then there's XSLT/XSL
Really, I think you need to be a lot more spesific with this question. What do you want to do with it?
posted by delmoi at 10:38 AM on March 28, 2006
The HP Learning Center, Introduction to XML looks a good introduction (with practical stuff) and it's free so if you spend 30 minutes having a look, nothing wasted.
posted by ceri richard at 11:07 AM on March 28, 2006
posted by ceri richard at 11:07 AM on March 28, 2006
Response by poster: delmoi: no, I don't want to do something specific with XML - that's why I'm looking for training that might give me something specific to try so that I can learn, well, anything.
I anticipate that knowledge of XML could soon be useful at work - this is speculation, so I don't know exactly in what context - so my current goal is just to elevate myself from a level of "when you say XML, I understand what you're talking about," to "if you have a problem which needs knowledge of XML, I feel confident I could at least give it a bash."
posted by russmail at 11:36 AM on March 28, 2006
I anticipate that knowledge of XML could soon be useful at work - this is speculation, so I don't know exactly in what context - so my current goal is just to elevate myself from a level of "when you say XML, I understand what you're talking about," to "if you have a problem which needs knowledge of XML, I feel confident I could at least give it a bash."
posted by russmail at 11:36 AM on March 28, 2006
Start with W3Schools, that will get you going.
As delmoi says, the basics of XML are pretty simple. You can grasp the basic concepts in a few minutes. It's "HTML where you get to make up your own tags" as someone once said. You get that, you get well-formedness, you get validity and you're done ... then you start to apply the knowledge to practical things and it get interesting.
Because then you learn the associated stuff like XPath and XSLT which you need to actually do anything useful with XML. That's when it gets interesting.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 12:17 PM on March 28, 2006
As delmoi says, the basics of XML are pretty simple. You can grasp the basic concepts in a few minutes. It's "HTML where you get to make up your own tags" as someone once said. You get that, you get well-formedness, you get validity and you're done ... then you start to apply the knowledge to practical things and it get interesting.
Because then you learn the associated stuff like XPath and XSLT which you need to actually do anything useful with XML. That's when it gets interesting.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 12:17 PM on March 28, 2006
When most people are talking about XML they mean the surrounding standards such as Namespaces, XPath, XSLT, XSL-FO, DOM, DocBook, TEI, XQuery etc.
So learn XML at first but it probably won't seem too practical unless you try to build something.
If you're keen on publishing and websites start out learning DocBook. Write some XSLT to convert that to HTML. Then write some XSLT to convert that DocBook to RSS.
Then once you're comfortable with XSLT start learning XML Pipelines, about formats like XBRL, RelaxNG, etc.
posted by holloway at 4:04 PM on March 28, 2006
So learn XML at first but it probably won't seem too practical unless you try to build something.
If you're keen on publishing and websites start out learning DocBook. Write some XSLT to convert that to HTML. Then write some XSLT to convert that DocBook to RSS.
Then once you're comfortable with XSLT start learning XML Pipelines, about formats like XBRL, RelaxNG, etc.
posted by holloway at 4:04 PM on March 28, 2006
er make that "they also mean the surrounding standards"
posted by holloway at 4:05 PM on March 28, 2006
posted by holloway at 4:05 PM on March 28, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aladfar at 10:28 AM on March 28, 2006