Evaluations on XML standards for actual applications

XML is a popular data format today, particular for data exchange over the web or among applications. Standards based on XML are widely used in lots of areas and for a number of applications. However, XML standards are still in their early stage therefore it is interesting to explore how they actually work in reality. In this thesis, we evaluate XML standards when using for actual applications, and propose a set of hypotheses concluding both advantages and challenges of using XML in real applications. We verify our hypotheses through a case study on a civil engineering application, and also review a few other areas to support them in general. Our study shows that XML standards have powerful strengths that make XML an important medium to support data exchange, but hard to use and far from perfect.Science, Faculty ofComputer Science, Department ofGraduat