Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Reading Notes, Week 9
Introducing the Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Yet again, here's another article that uses lingo unfamiliar to me, but, I suppose, I'm familiar enough to follow along. For instance, I've seen XML or HTML before and know what their acronyms stand for, but I don't really have much knowledge about what they "do." This makes it very difficult to contextualize the importance of these things.
Anyway, the article attempts to make that problem go away by explaining step-by-step how and why, for example, XML works. To illustrate, XML "bring multiple files together to form compound documents." Well, at this point, at least, I can make a distinction between XML and HTML.
I'm anxious to see if this article will help me with assignment 6, although I think we're using HTML.
A Survey of XML Standards: Part 1
"The world of XML is vast and growing, with a huge variety of standards and technologies that interact in complex ways. It can be difficult for beginners to navigate the most important aspects of XML, and for users to keep track of new entries and changes in the space."
Great. Well, I'm certainly a beginner (although I did make a webpage once, about 8 years ago, when I was a freshman undergrad). However, I would have been better off reading this page first. It has a better overview of XML, and made reading "Introducing the Extensible Markup Language (XML)" a little more understandable, especially with all the links and tutorials available.
Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial
This article is much better written for the layperson. The XML Resources section of the article also gave a nice overview of where to go for more XML information. I also think this statement seems important, yet somewhat implicitly ignored: "Of course software that supports XML is essential. Because existing standards continue to develop and new ones constantly arise, many tools support only parts of some specifications. An excellent overview of existing systems and tools can be found at http://xmlsoftware.com."
XML Schema Tutorial
This was also a good tutorial, because it explained what you needed to know when and why, and provided the links to further understand key concepts and applications. Myself, I had to go to the DTD tutorial first to gain a better understanding (DTD still isn't all that clear, but this site made it a lot more comprehensible).
Anyway, it makes more sense to see that XML is a replacement for DTD, adding context to the problem. One problem, however, is that this tutorial doesn't explain why it's "easier" to use. What does the author mean by "easier" anyway? I'm not sure that the examples and references show that very well, although they are very simple to understand. Once I got to the Complex Elements and Types sections, etc, though, I got a little lost again - but this is due to my, obviously, incomplete comprehension of the subject matter.
To conclude, I think it's clear I have to tutor myself a little better on this stuff. I get most of it, initially, but then I tend to get bogged down in details that I don't really understand well enough to comment on, other than to say "Okay, I get this part, but how do I connect the part of which I have an elementary understanding to the part I don't really understand at all?"
Yet again, here's another article that uses lingo unfamiliar to me, but, I suppose, I'm familiar enough to follow along. For instance, I've seen XML or HTML before and know what their acronyms stand for, but I don't really have much knowledge about what they "do." This makes it very difficult to contextualize the importance of these things.
Anyway, the article attempts to make that problem go away by explaining step-by-step how and why, for example, XML works. To illustrate, XML "bring multiple files together to form compound documents." Well, at this point, at least, I can make a distinction between XML and HTML.
I'm anxious to see if this article will help me with assignment 6, although I think we're using HTML.
A Survey of XML Standards: Part 1
"The world of XML is vast and growing, with a huge variety of standards and technologies that interact in complex ways. It can be difficult for beginners to navigate the most important aspects of XML, and for users to keep track of new entries and changes in the space."
Great. Well, I'm certainly a beginner (although I did make a webpage once, about 8 years ago, when I was a freshman undergrad). However, I would have been better off reading this page first. It has a better overview of XML, and made reading "Introducing the Extensible Markup Language (XML)" a little more understandable, especially with all the links and tutorials available.
Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial
This article is much better written for the layperson. The XML Resources section of the article also gave a nice overview of where to go for more XML information. I also think this statement seems important, yet somewhat implicitly ignored: "Of course software that supports XML is essential. Because existing standards continue to develop and new ones constantly arise, many tools support only parts of some specifications. An excellent overview of existing systems and tools can be found at http://xmlsoftware.com."
XML Schema Tutorial
This was also a good tutorial, because it explained what you needed to know when and why, and provided the links to further understand key concepts and applications. Myself, I had to go to the DTD tutorial first to gain a better understanding (DTD still isn't all that clear, but this site made it a lot more comprehensible).
Anyway, it makes more sense to see that XML is a replacement for DTD, adding context to the problem. One problem, however, is that this tutorial doesn't explain why it's "easier" to use. What does the author mean by "easier" anyway? I'm not sure that the examples and references show that very well, although they are very simple to understand. Once I got to the Complex Elements and Types sections, etc, though, I got a little lost again - but this is due to my, obviously, incomplete comprehension of the subject matter.
To conclude, I think it's clear I have to tutor myself a little better on this stuff. I get most of it, initially, but then I tend to get bogged down in details that I don't really understand well enough to comment on, other than to say "Okay, I get this part, but how do I connect the part of which I have an elementary understanding to the part I don't really understand at all?"
Monday, October 20, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Muddiest Point #4
This is from the class lecture: Can someone further explain the "dot com bubble" and why that "bubble" burst? Beyond that, what are the ramifications for Internet access, if there are any?
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Assignment #4: Jing Video and Images
Video:
http://www.screencast.com/users/dmb97pitt/folders/Default/media/6ec55ed7-7918-4b7f-9a6c-61a7e2cf77a1
Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335281/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2921178680/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2921178698/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335367/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335387/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.screencast.com/users/dmb97pitt/folders/Default/media/6ec55ed7-7918-4b7f-9a6c-61a7e2cf77a1
Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335281/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2921178680/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2921178698/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335367/in/set-72157607815482569/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30555409@N03/2920335387/in/set-72157607815482569/
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