406 Topics

We will address the following topics, in roughly the order listed here. The time required for each topic will depend on the materials I can find or create and on your own learning process. We will operate on a “no-student-left-behind” basis and move on only when everyone gets it. We can contract or expand the unit on “Doing things with XML,” depending on how much time we have left in the course.

Guest speakers will visit our class as/when their professional schedules permit. I have extended invitations to staff at the Queen’s Printer and at the Legislature, an open-data expert, a writer of software documentation, a metadata librarian, humanities programmers, research assistants in the humanities, and a lawyer who built a tool for tracking changes in XML-encoded legislation.

I. Markup

  • What is markup?
  • History of Markup
  • Computer Markup languages before XML (snow-day cancellation)
  • Brief history of XML, its development, and its uses (snow-day cancellation)

II. Principles of XML and Sample XML Languages

  • Principles of XML (XML_WellFormedness)
  • The basics of XML markup: elements, attributes, and values
  • XML editor (oXygen by Syncrosoft)
  • Make up our own language (in a basic XML file)
  • Parsing other XML documents (a cookbook with five recipes)
  • XML languages or specifications
  • XML guidelines for selected languages (My Cookbook, CBML, MEI, TEI)

III. Encoding Data and Documents

IV. Compliance, customization, and documentation

V.  Doing things with XML

  • Styling it (with CSS)
  • Inspecting it (with Inspector tools)
  • Doing research with it (with XPath and XQuery)
  • Transforming it (with XSLT)
  • Publishing it (use XSLT and CSS)
  • Preserving it (with a nod to the Endings Project)

VI. Bonus

  • Learn GitHub