XML or eXtensible Markup Language is the latest version of Hyper Text Markup Language, the language that browsers use to display web pages the way the designer wanted the pages displayed. XML is neither browser nor operating system specific. Additionally, the way XML formats web pages allows you to display non-English characters on your website, such as Chinese or French characters. Current browsers are able to correctly display all XML coding.
As a whole, XML has become very commonly used in computing. Most enterprise applications use a form of XML. If you use the most recent version of Microsoft Office, you’ll find that the programs use a new XML based format for their documents. For example, Word documents now end in .docx. You cannot cannot open these documents with an older version of Microsoft Office.
When you want to create a web document in XML, there are several ways to do it. However, if you are already using Java technology, the easiest way to create an XML document is by visiting http://jaxb.java.net, where you can download the JAXB API or Application Programming Interface. There are several versions of this JAXB API available on this website. The most current version is backwards compatible with the older versions. The JAXB API is distributed under the CDDL or Common Development Distribution License.
JAXB helps Java developers map their Javascript programming to XML. This allows them to spend less time coding, yet they are able to transfer their programming into XML using the W3C XML schema. With XML, Java programmers are able to extend their code to use other web service technology. Though many Java programs are client side, including XML allows greater functionality especially with applications that are run server side. Though the JAXB API is available for download as .jar or Java ARchive files which are distributed under the CDDL, there is some help available if you go to the discussion forum. This forum will allow you to ask questions or otherwise get help from those who are more familiar with this programming interface.
If you come up with improvements that could be made to the JAXB API, you might be interested in contributing to the development of this programming interface. You can contact someone at the JAXB Project, you can choose to contribute source code, a TCK or Technology Compatability Kit or otherwise help with another XJC plugin. An XJC plugin allows you to generate Java classes from XML. Almost a reverse of what the JAXB API does.