Re: XML in education

[Duane Morin <dmorin@tiac.net>]

> I was not closely following the XML discussion here, so can anybody tell
> me in two words how efficient present XML-parsers/libraries are?

In short, it's directly related to the length of the file, since every 
character must be read and parsed.  After that, it's dependent on machine
and parser speed.  I've never seen a parser take more than a couple of 
seconds to read and parse an XML file.

> Is it also possible to have HTML inside XML to provide more tools and
> things (like graphics) to the quiz-designer?

In theory, yes, but it would be very difficult to write a DTD to handle that,
since you'd have to describe the whole of HTML inside EDUML.  Perhaps better
would be to allow URLs in EDUML which would then link to an HTML page 
containing the content you want to display.  Note that it wouldn't have to
be a true browser connection - you could have your quiz software open up the
specified file locally and use it that way, provided that you know the 
files are stored locally.

Duane