Extreme Programming for Web Projects

Chapter 9. XML”A Better Way

With HTML we build brittle, unmaintainable sites. XML frees us to create fluid site architectures that are change friendly and easy to maintain. Pages are not objects yet, but we are getting close.

XML is an important development in Web technology that has been around for a few years now. Sometime over the last two or three years however, advancement in the standards process and availability of tools have made it extremely usable in today's Web development environment. Still while the buzz about XML is everywhere and XML use is increasing, there are still a huge number of people and companies who don't use it efficiently for everyday Web development.

XML offers many benefits to all developers, whether or not they are using XP. However, some of XML's features support XP in a highly synergistic way. A complete explanation of XML is beyond the scope of this book, but we will quickly run down some of its advantages in XP development. After that, in Chapter 10 we will introduce a specific Web site design architecture that takes advantage of many XML and XSLT features.

Before we start, let's review existing Web development practices so we can see what problems XML helps fix.