XML Upgrade
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that describe the strucure of data documents. It is "extended" to match the needs of the document author to record data. HTML was designed to be a simple markup language. It is not designed to create web documents capable of being a source of information storage and retrieval.
In overcoming the limitations of HTML, XML is developed to allow specification for formatting data in a text format to make easy data storage and transfer. It is easy to generate, easy to read as well as application and platform independent.
Yet, XML still has its shortcoming. not all web browser support XML at the moment. Thus, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) will be need to transform XML documents into HTML so that the site will be accessible via existing browsers.
XML Upgrade Plan
To ensure a smooth migration to the XML platform,
1) Employ XSLT design tool to create the XSLT to replace the current CSS
2) Define XML volcabulary, elements and attributes
3) Creation of DTD file, XML docments and XSLT file
The upgrade will be experimented on test server before the actual migration to avoid disruption to our service.
Reference:
Felke-Morris, T. (2011). Web development and design foundations with XHTML (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Carey, Patrick. (2010). HTML, XHTMK and XML. Boston: Course Technology, Cengage Learning
Knobloch, M. & Kopp, M. (2003). Web Design with XML. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.