RE: When to use XML or HTML extensions?

["Hewko, Doug" <Doug.Hewko@ccra-adrc.gc.ca>]

Thanks for the reply. If you use a XML file, then aren't you limiting
yourself to just one style sheet? Or maybe my understanding of XML is still
too narrow.

As an example, take a phone list, which is a *.xml file because that's the
easiest to start using. If you want the same data to be displayed in
multiple ways (ie. sorted alphabetically or by location), then shouldn't you
use *.html files?


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Flynn [mailto:peter@silmaril.ie]
Sent: July 12, 2001 2:10 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: When to use XML or HTML extensions?


On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Hewko, Doug wrote:
> I noticed that some people use files with an XML extension and some with
> HTML. For example here are two equivalent pages of Jeni's XSLT Tutorial
> pages: 
> http://www.jenitennison.com/xslt/index.xml
> http://www.jenitennison.com/xslt/index.html

That's often because some people don't have browsers that can
read XML yet, so they can use the HTML.

> Other tutorials ("XML Bible", "Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours", W3Schoosl,
> etc) tend to incorporate XML within a HTML document.

Then they are being very misleading. That is a technique called
Islands and (AFAIK) only works in MSIE5.* so it's completely
non-portable. 

> Is there some
> rule that tells you when to use one method vs another?

Your market. If they all use an identically-capable browser,
then use the best features available to them; otherwise provide
XML files for those who can read them and HTML for those who
cannot. 

///Peter

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