XML and the W3C

The Extensible Markup Language, or XML, is another in a set of technologies from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that is changing the way we share and exchange information via networked computers. XML is a technology that was developed with the World Wide Web in mind, as a mechanism for structuring data for multiple uses, while still keeping that data in a format that would be friendly for exchange via the Web. The result of the W3C working group's efforts came to fruition in February 1998 with the publication of the XML 1.0 Recommendation. Since then, XML has evolved from that single Recommendation into a host of Recommendations, all interrelated and based on the basic tenants of XML. In this chapter, we are going to take a look at how all of these various XML-based technologies fit together to form the big picture for XML, and why that makes XML and the XML family of Recommendations such a powerful set of technologies.