Re: The future of PHP

XML is pretty standardized, but the implementation of it in various web browsers isn't. I wouldn't consider XML all that comparable to HTML. They don't serve the same purpose. XML is generally used to order and describe data (metadata, basically), and although HTML serves roughly the same purpose, HTML is much more focused in what it provides -- HTML is meant to be rendered in a web browser, while XML's use is really undefined. You can use XML for server-to-server communications, peer-to-peer stuff, messaging, document descriptions, and pretty much any generalized markup. HTML really isn't designed for that sort of stuff. As for "freestyle", XML's syntax is much less open to interpretation than HTML's. XML is much more rigid -- forget a closing tag and your document becomes invalid. Screw up the order of your elements and it's invalid. If you forget a closing tag in HTML, you can be forgiven, but in XML, you're toast. Even linebreak elements in XML need closing tags. It doesn't really matter how IE and Netscape or any other browser renders XML. That's what XSL is for -- transforming XML into HTML before it is sent to the client. (Alternatively, the XML could be sent directly to the client and then doing the transformation client-side. As for XML scripting engines, again, XML is just markup, it isn't really a scripting engine. There is a bit of scripting-like looping structures and logic that can be used in XSL, but it's nowhere near the level of PHP, ASP, Perl, etc. Apache's Cocoon XML/XSL system does have a programming system built in called XSP (eXtensible Server Pages), which is basically takes Java embedded into XML or XSL and compiles it all as one big Java class. (You can add different languages to XSP, but it isn't fun. The next version will have "producers" that can create XML from scripting/compiled languages, including PHP.) I've mixed PHP and XML (with XSLT) on my current project quite nicely. I started with Cocoon and XSP, but as Sablotron and PHP's XSLT extensions became more stable, I started using them rather than combining both Cocoon and PHP. J Elias Santiago wrote: > He MAY be right, may not. XML is just not so standardized (if in doubt > look how IE and Netscape each implement it "their way") I consider XML > like > "freestyle HTML". I know this technology has great potential but if > developers don't decide on how to standardize it, it could die young. PHP > however (as an avid follower) is on a "fast track" and even Microsoft > considers it a strong contender to ASP. However, both PHP and XML > technologies are just scripting engines. Products like the Zend engine > are just starting to scratch the surface for truly dynamic, cached, > real-time > web applications. I'm not saying that either PHP or XML (or any other > technology that comes along) is going to die or leave the other "in the > dust" but look what has happened with Java, it has certainly lost > momentum. >