Week 9- Reading Response

This week's readings were introductions of and tutorials for XML, a supposedly better, clearer, and easier to se mark-up language. I say supposedly because the very last tutorial called for a basic understanding of HTML, XML domain namesand other sundries--I don't think that after two weeks of reading articles about them that I have any real understanding, let alone a basic one.

That being said, once I start Assignment 6 I think that a lot of what the articles are talking about will become English for me: right now, a lot of it is simply too abstract or else too new for me to hold in my head long enough to make sense of the arguments for why XML is better, or specifically what the differences are. I understand that HTML had preset tags that you use to create, whereas in XML you define your own entity "elements." It's at this point when it comes to computer programming that I start to get really frustrated, because I want to understand how the "computer" originally, the very first time they were entered, learned what all the commands meant, and how it understands what the tags I make up mean. It is the part of computing I cannot hold in my head or else that noone can explain to me in terms I understand.