a SKU number depends on who named it. One programmer could call a component a “overpriced college textbook”, while another could call it a college text book which is overpriced. While humans can understand that it is the same thing, the computers won’t. So, the challenge is that the e-commerce community must quickly agree upon a standard set of element names.OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information), a quasi-Extensible Markup Language standards body is working in conjunction with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium - overall Extensible Markup Language creators and controlling standards body) to develop Extensible Markup Language standards. Although standardization efforts are underway, most agree that it will take at least a few years to iron out.Extensible Markup Language - the Other PiecesThe World Wide Web Consortium mentioned above is also the controlling body for the complementary Extensible Markup Language markup specifications. Unlike HyperText Markup Language, Extensible Markup Language cannot “function” on its own. The World Wide Web Consortium is developing Namespaces architecture, which allows Extensible Markup Language documents to combine potentially conflicting sets of Extensible Markup Language tags. The Document Object Modeler (DOM) specifies a standard interface for applications and scripts to access Extensible Markup Language data. Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) as previously mentioned, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) documents provide display specifications for Extensible Markup Language documents. Extensible Linking Language (XLL) describes references among Extensible Markup Language documents. The above listed technologies assist with the success of Extensible Markup Language. While an individual Extensible Markup Language document by itself describes only the data that it contains and not its formatting nor references to external data, XSL and XLL docume...
