XML for formatting web documents

November 22, 2006 7:23 AM

Help me understand this "XML master" job listing.

The advertisement says they want someone to format book-length projects and shorter documents and forms, both print- and web-based. Some of the documents have to include mathematical formulas or foreign languages.

One of the requirements is: "Computer proficiency with XML," and earlier in the job description it says "Mastery of XML required."

..later it says "must be able to create style sheets and convert xisting documents to those styles"

So, when they say a prospective employee has to have a "mastery of XML" do they mean xhtml? Or what? This is all stuff someone can do in Dreamweaver or something, right?

Okay, in other words, help me learn what they want and pass myself off as an expert by this Saturday night when the application is due.

posted by thirteenkiller to Computers & Internet (23 answers total)

I understand XML conceptually, but I want to know what schema and editing software they're likely to be using.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:26 AM on November 22, 2006

Sounds like the have one version of the file which gets edited. Then they probably have XSLT stylesheets to transform the content into other languagaes. XSLT is a gimpy programming language written in xml-like syntax that modifies other xml documents.
posted by cschneid at 7:41 AM on November 22, 2006

The "book-length projects" sounds like it could be Docbook or something similar. Which is probably not something you can learn by Saturday night.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:47 AM on November 22, 2006

For that type of work they are likely using Docbook XML with XSLT, CSS, and/or xml-fo stylesheets.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:48 AM on November 22, 2006

"mastery of XML" do they mean xhtml? Or what?

No, they mean XML. You're looking at this as if it necessarily has something to do with the web and/or HTML but it doesn't. XML and XSLT are completely generic technologies that can be applied to zillions of fields.

This is all stuff someone can do in Dreamweaver or something, right?

Lord no.

help me learn what they want and pass myself off as an expert by this Saturday night when the application is due.

I don't see that happening, sorry.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:51 AM on November 22, 2006

The ad also goes on and on about Word and Wordperfect, so I assume that's what they use for formatting stuff for print.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:55 AM on November 22, 2006

There's an XML spec. Read it. If you can read it and get it and apply it in a basic text editor you're close enough to being an "XML master". (My opinion: to truly be a master you'd also have to have a decent general idea of how it's implemented, but you're not looking to be a programmer.)
posted by orthogonality at 7:59 AM on November 22, 2006

Umm, I use Altova XMLSpy for doing most things with XML. There's a free version on the Web site, but they make you hunt for it.
posted by Hildago at 8:03 AM on November 22, 2006

XML and XSLT are completely generic technologies that can be applied to zillions of fields.

So they want someone who has completely mastered XML for every possible application? I doubt it. The ad says it's for web formatting. And surely they use editing software, it's not like I have to learn every tag or command or whatever and write it myself in notepad.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:05 AM on November 22, 2006

but you're not looking to be a programmer

Exactly.. I think the ad is poorly worded. I'm pretty sure they want someone who can run WYSIWYG editors and have a basic understanding of what's going on in the background.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:12 AM on November 22, 2006

thirteenkiller writes "So they want someone who has completely mastered XML for every possible application? I"

Well, I didn't write the ad (or read it, as you don't link to it), but XML is a markup language. They (apparently) want someone who knows the language. Whilst you wouldn't necessarily have to forgo use of specialized editing software, I'm presuming they'd want someone not reliant on any particular tool, thus my suggestion that a good test of "mastery" would be to be able write XML markup in general text editor.

They want someone who knows XML, the language, and can apply it to arbitrary "applications" or problem domains.

Again, to learn the language, read the spec. These specs are written very very carefully to be as precise and unambiguous as possible. This makes them verbose and non-tutorial, but by definition they cover everything. Read the spec, and see if it makes sense to you. If it does, apply for the job.
posted by orthogonality at 8:17 AM on November 22, 2006

I'm gonna. Thanks, ortho.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:18 AM on November 22, 2006

I'm still suspecting docbook in there. It might be worthwhile to look up some of the xslt software out there like saxon and apache fop. Chances are that if they are talking about XML and stylesheets, that they are using that or similar tools to translate between specs.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:57 AM on November 22, 2006

XML itself is fairly easy, and testing for knowledge in an interview generally involves a few vocabulary words.

XSLT, DTD's or XSDs become much more difficult and can't really be learned overnight.
posted by bitdamaged at 9:19 AM on November 22, 2006

it's not like I have to learn every tag or command or whatever and write it myself in notepad.

There are no tags (well, very few) or commands. XML is just a way to format data. You can "master" the basics in 15 minutes. That said, there's a reason there's a thousand books on it. Organizing data effectively in XML and applying it to different applications can get very specialized very quickly. The stylesheets they refer to are probably not CSS ... and XSLT can be quite maddening.

What I'm saying is, yeah, read the spec and tutorial or two and then apply for the job. But if you get an interview, make doubly sure you know what your day-to-day tasks are going to be like. If you are not interested in programming, it is likely not a good job for you.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:25 AM on November 22, 2006

If the ad mentions Word and Wordperfect, be wary. You may be looking at a Word -> XML or Wordperfect -> XML conversion project. Be afraid.

Word and Wordperfect documents are unstructured documents. Unless a document author rigorously adheres to a well-thought-out set of styles (and 99.99% of all authors don't), then any document will be a mish-mash of font and bold tags that is virtually impossible to convert to structured (semantic) markup programmatically. If you are, in fact, working on a conversion project, then you may have to go through the "converted" documents (basically big blocks of text) and tag appropriately. That job would suck. On the bright side, it's a cash cow and takes forever.

Be extra afraid if they tell you that they want to use Word as an XML editor. Personally, I am a fan of XMetaL, and use it for editing lengthy XML documents. It comes with a Docbook customization so it's almost ready to go out of the box. If you're using a different schema then I would not use it, as the pain associated with customization is probably not worth the rewards.
posted by crazycanuck at 9:46 AM on November 22, 2006

Seconding "XSLT is quite maddening". I used to work as a tech writer. XSLT was required in a (very early) AJAX implementation. Using XSLT requires a lot of recursive thinking, and is more like Prolog or Lisp than anything else. It's declarative and extremely iterative, which is both a gift and a curse. It's not something you can pick up quickly and if it's something your employers expect then there will be a steep learning curve. Once you get the hang of it, it works very well, but it's not really something you can bluff convincingly.

XQuery is more procedural than XSLT, and is sometimes easier to pick up quickly for people used to scripting or imperative languages such as SQL/Java/C etc. It can also be used to transform XML into display formats. I think it would be easier to pass off as an XQuery "expert" than an XSLT expert - just ensure you know your XPath and your FLWR syntax.
posted by meehawl at 9:48 AM on November 22, 2006

XML itself is fairly easy, and testing for knowledge in an interview generally involves a few vocabulary words.

It is in the 80-20 sense but damn there are a lot of wrinkles and oddities in that other 20% espacially if you introduce namespaces, DTDs and all the different schema languages.

Also the multiple language thing means dealing with unicode...once again not difficult but making sure that every tool in the toolchain is using the right encoding can be a challenge at times.

Also, if you are expected to deal with XSLT and you've never seen it before then you are going to have a lot of mind-reconfiguring to deal with by Saturday Night. It really truely is a different way of thinking.
posted by mmascolino at 9:53 AM on November 22, 2006

I should mention that this job gets a really minimal salary. That's one reason I think it can't be THAT hard. Someone with skills as general and awesome as the ad says would be able to get a better salary, right?
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:03 AM on November 22, 2006

Minimal being around $21k. There are programming jobs listed on the same page that have a much higher salary.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:09 AM on November 22, 2006

Hildago:

>I use Altova XMLSpy for doing most things with XML. There's a free version on the Web site, but they make you hunt for it.

Not any more. There's no free version now.

My answer to the OP ... it depends on this bit: '..later it says "must be able to create style sheets and convert xisting documents to those styles"'

If that means XSL style sheets, that's one thing and if that means style sheets in a WP program it's something completely different. So ... how much "later" after the XML stuff does it say that?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 12:36 PM on November 22, 2006

crazycanuck nailed it. Any project that involves converting that travesty called "WordML" into a different XML format is a nightmare. (I just finished a Word --> XML project and don't ever want to do it again.) From the description you've provided, it seems likely they want to convert their legacy data from WordPerfect to XML then single-source it to web and print. The MSWord mention may mean they want to print from Word (shudder). The mathematical formulas mean they're using MathML (if they're doing it right) and foreign languages mean Unicode and much more complexity in the stylesheets (for bi-directional text, like having an English word in the middle of an Arabic sentence). I have to disagree with the idea they'd be using DocBook: my guess would be DITA, something homegrown, or Mil-specs if it's the military. If these assumptions are correct, can you pass yourself off as an expert by Saturday? No.
posted by sfkiddo at 12:51 PM on November 22, 2006

Oops, just saw the salary was 21K; my assumptions would be valid if it paid 4-5 times that much. For 21K, AmbroseChapel may be on to something with the comment of stylesheets in a WP program.
posted by sfkiddo at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2006