Mood:
hug meNow Playing: 'Making Tools' Stone age tribe hammered by robots. (Fossils / Freebies)
Topic: Pervasive Computing
Question:
IBM (actually an O'Reilly Editor is asking) wants to know: "What are all you 'XML Programmers' using for tools? Rocks tied to sticks?"
XML and Java technology: Low-level or high-level XML APIs?
How much control do you want over your XML?
Brett D. McLaughlin, Sr. (brett@newInstance.com), Author and Editor, O'Reilly Media, Inc.
29 May 2007
Not many years ago, the options for working with XML were limited essentially to SAX, DOM, or a home-brewed API. With hundreds of different developer-friendly APIs today, though, have developers lost some of their ability to manipulate XML?
Here's the deal: I'm looking to stir the pot a bit. This is obviously not a tip that is overflowing with working code, because I wonder who really does use working XML code these days, and what API (or APIs) they use. Is it true that hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of you out there still plug away with SAX and DOM, comfortable writing your startProcessingInstruction() method, or have data binding and helper APIs completely taken over? I'm curious, as is much of the developerWorks editorial staff.
And arguably more importantly, do you believe you still have the control and power over your XML? I pose this question particularly to programmers who have worked with XML since the early days when SAX was your only option for speedy XML reading, and DOM was the only choice if you wanted to deal with an XML document in object form. Do you find yourself working at a higher level, and are you OK with that? Or have we all become Turbo Pascal programmers while only a select few guys are popping the stack over on their ASM terminals? Please, get involved in this discussion—hop on over to the forum and start posting, and let's see what everyone thinks. XML programmers: declawed or not?
I would like to know a few answers as well, like, how do all you developers feel watching Java take on XML while .Net sits in the closet?
