Do I have to know HTML or SGML before I learn XML?

XML Interview Questions and Answers

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23. Do I have to know HTML or SGML before I learn XML?

No, although it's useful because a lot of XML terminology and practice derives from two decades' experience of SGML.
Be aware that ‘knowing HTML’ is not the same as ‘understanding SGML’. Although HTML was written as an SGML application, browsers ignore most of it (which is why so many useful things don't work), so just because something is done a certain way in HTML browsers does not mean it's correct, least of all in XML.

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Other Interview Questions

• What is the relationship between XML namespaces and the XML 1.0 recommendation?
• Do I have to know HTML or SGML before I learn XML?
• Give some examples of XML DTDs or schemas that you have worked with.
• What's XLink?
• What does an XML document actually look like (inside)?
• How do I get XML into or out of a database?
• What happens when an XML namespace declaration goes out of scope?
• How do I use XML namespaces with DOM level 2?
• Can I use Java to create or manage XML files?
• How do I use the default XML namespace to refer to element type names in an XML namespace?
• More...