XML Programming in Visual Basic 9.0

By now you've probably heard of LINQ (or Language Integrated Query), the new query technology coming in Visual Studio® 2008. LINQ-enabled languages like Visual Basic® give you a rich set of query operators that can be applied to various data sources, such as in-memory collections, databases, datasets, and XML. That alone is pretty cool, but Visual Basic 9.0 actually goes beyond that and makes XML a first-class data type directly in the language...

The problem with XML, however, is that it has never been particularly easy for developers to work with. Awkward and inconsistent APIs, such as the Document Object Model (DOM), and languages such as XSLT and XQuery lead to writing a lot of tedious code that is often difficult to read and understand. But with the introduction of LINQ and Visual Basic 9.0, XML development becomes much easier. In this column I will explore the current XML programming experience, how LINQ improves the experience, and how Visual Basic provides even more support when working with XML...

The future of XML

The wheels of progress turn slowly, but turn they do. The crystal ball might be a little hazy, but the outline of XML's future is becoming clear. The exact time line is a tad uncertain, but where XML is going isn't. XML's future lies with the Web, and more specifically with Web publishing.

It seems a little funny to have to say that. After all, isn't publishing what the Web is about? The Web was designed first and foremost as a mechanism to publish information. What else can it do? Quite a lot...

XSLT and XML office formats will also bring a lot of hidden data out into the open. Numerous business documents have languished unread in file systems for the last decade or more. Most of them are doubtless irrelevant today, but some of them contain important information that's been forgotten because no one can search it. Corporate developers will extract and repurpose information from existing Office documents, first by automating conversion to newer XML-based formats, and then using XSLT and XQuery to make the data findable....

Monitoring tool takes care of business

ActiveXperts Network Monitor 7.0 is a no-frills package for server, application and network hardware monitoring that is designed to be quick to set up and easy to use.

We downloaded a 30-day trial version and installed it on our Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition system. A Quick Configuration Wizard helps the user to get the system up and running. It begins by setting up and testing a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server, after which SMS options are set up . . .

Reports can be run ad hoc, or scheduled via the Windows Task Scheduler. Report results obtained from a scheduled run can also be sent to any number of recipients by email, again on a pre-defined schedule. Format support includes HTML, XML, XML/XSL or comma-separated values (CSV). . .

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XML Database vs. MySQL Databases

Using an XML database is reportedly more efficient in terms of conversion costs when you’re constantly sending XML into and retrieving XML out of a database. The rationale is, when XML is the only transport syntax used to get things in and out of the DB, why squeeze everything through a layer of SQL abstraction . . .

. . . Combined with the power of XSLT, the output of a database query can be transformed into anything you may imagine . . .

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Announcing the XSLT Profiler Addin for VS 2008

XML Tools team has released the XSLT Profiler Addin for VS 2008 - a quick and reliable performance analysis profiler tool that assists in the development and debugging of XSLT documents. The XSLT Profiler Addin for VS 2008 allows developers to measure, evaluate, and target performance-related problems in XSLT code by creating detailed XSLT performance reports. The XSLT Profiler includes a wealth of useful hints for XSL and XSLT style sheet optimizations, which are essential for XSLT-based applications that demand maximum performance.

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