XML and the Future

When Ajax was established the understandable mark-up that could handle the demands of the programming technique is XML. Since 2005, developers around the world have been trying to use XML, understand it and even advance it so that it could adapt to the recent changes in the programming industry.

This mark-up is the “child” of SGML which is now roughly 20 years old. Although SGML was used as a mark-up for the HTML pages and particularly created to develop websites for informational purposes; XML, as its child, also have the same role. XML is used to relay information to the client side. Its success is mainly based on its ability to adjust to different settings and Ajax is no exception, at least when it was established.

XML and Publishing

Unfortunately, the use of XML is not as frequent as it has been three years ago. JavaScript’s own mark-up tool JSON is steadily gaining in popularity. The compatibility of JSON is undeniable as this mark-up language was specifically built for JavaScript. Although a lot younger than XML, it could perform better compared to XML.

The problem of XML does not end there. XML has been created particularly for publishing purposes which mean it could be used in providing information or specifically streaming information to the client side. XML is based on SGML which has the purpose of publishing information in HTML. Basically, the role of SGML has been transferred to XML for better interaction and adoption especially to other programming languages.

XML, on the other hand, have been developed only for publishing purposes. If you take a look at different Ajax based websites today, these websites were not built only for informational purposes. The Ajax based websites today are robust online applications which could run in lesser bandwidth than its competitors.

With the help of frameworks, developers could easily publish a website full of functions fast. XML was never built for that although it could handle information streaming, it could never handle additional tasks demanded by an Ajax based application. As a result, developers who do not use frameworks would often prefer JSON over XML.

There are developers who are still staying with XML for Ajax. Although Ajax is fairly new, it uses XML as the mark-up tool so that it could easily adapt to different languages. Ajax has grown into what it is today with the help of XML.

The future of Ajax is not based on XML anymore. Rather, it is XML that should be implementing some changes so that it could adapt to the rapidly changing environment for Ajax. XML’s publishing feature is remarkable but going beyond that is questionable for now.

Unless developers find a specific answer to help in the build-up of XML, JSON will take over and could become the standard mark-up for an Ajax based application. For now, XML is there waiting to change and to be adopted.