Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) are breaking down some of the traditional barriers to building collaborative applications. The Java platform’s portable code capability allows Java applications to be deployed to a wide variety of platforms and to any application tier. The Java language itself is a well-designed object-oriented programming language that allows Java developers to easily build applications by creating hierarchies of objects.
XML is a syntax for defining markup languages that in many ways is analogous to Java. Using XML, documents or messages become hierarchical containers within which the data content is “marked up” in a manner that is totally independent of platform or language. Java’s object-orientation lends itself well to representing the hierarchy of XML data as a hierarchy of objects. It is important to note that XML can be processed by any language or application—there is no specific tie to Java. As such, XML allows applications to exchange data with minimal dependencies between the producer of a document or message and its recipient.
