... And XML Begat CML ...

magazines, and newspapers. These tags can be literally anything you want. In fact, you could even use XML to "rewrite" your own special brand of HTML!

While most of the talk here, and in a lot of XML references, is on web applications, XML can clearly be employed over a much broader spectrum of information management. One example might be the use of XML in a search-engine-type query. If you were searching a database for breeds of dogs, for example, you might want to tag certain results with markers such as "collie", "dalmation", "store-bought", or "adopted" for further processing somewhere else down the line. The same type of idea holds for almost any situation where categorizing data is important.

The real beauty and power of XML lies in its extensibility. Obviously, since no tags are predefined, the user is not limited to a certain set of data types. Because of this, XML can be customized to any type of organization or situation. This flexibility has led to the development of a whole genre of markup languages within certain fields based on XML. One of the most mature of these languages is CML, the Chemical Markup Language. Next week, we'll take an in-depth look at CML as an example of how people are employing XML in the scientific community.

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