Re: [xml-dev] help w/ an intro XML talk

[Betty Harvey <harvey@eccnet.com>]

On Sat, 29 Sep 2001, Sean McGrath wrote:

>
> >At 01:14 AM 29/09/01 -0500, Imran Rashid wrote:
> > >        I'm supposed to be giving a brief "intro to XML" talk to a
> > technical audience that doesn't know anything about XML.  I was hoping I
> > could look at some of the presentations the more experienced members of
> > this list have given.  I know there have been links posted previously,
> > but a quick search of the archive didn't turn up much.
>
> [Tim Bray]
>
> >What I find works well is to show four slides.  The first is
> >a sample of HTML, with all the usual HTML problems, unclosed
> >tags, the <IMG> element with no end-tag, unquoted attribute
> >values, no enclosing tag pair for the whole doc.
>
> I used to start my XML talks with the old nugget the office
> <memo>.
>
> Then one day I switched to <invoice>.
>

I also use the <invoice> for a traditional EDI audience.  In other
presentations I use a <poem> because it is simple and it is easy
to contrast an XML poem with a poem tagged in HTML.

To show the flexibility of XML, I also show how you can model a house.  A
house has a mandatory kitchen and living area, optional den, one or more
bedrooms and zero or more bathrooms (I was born in West Virginia so
bathrooms can be optional |-).  I then show how you can inventory the
furnishings in each room.

I use the house scenario people have complained that XML is
too documentcentric.  The house scenario proves that it can be
a modeling tool as well.

Betty

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Betty Harvey, XML Consultant,        | Phone: 410-787-9200 FAX: 9830
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
harvey@eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC SGML/XML Users Grp
URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/