Hi,
These are some of the benefits that xml brings to an application,
Making information transfer more fluid:
-If your
Vb components or classes return information back as Xml, ur display or user tier could be anything, as such your application would be more flexible. U could use the same components to send info to an excel sheet, a web page or even another application. This is because you can utilise xsl stylesheets to transform information to the desired effect.
- instead of passing back alot of ByRef variables or even hefty resource intensive objects (example ADO recordsets), you just pass back a string that contains all the information that you need.
Tier Separation,
- It ensures that ur tiers are really separated, ur user interface(display) tier becomes a tool for displaying and entering information only. All processing is centralised in your components and no where else.
Basically, your application becomes that bit more flexible and a bit more future proof. So it all depends on the type of app you have. In terms of speed you may get a bit of a boost and if your app is processing intensive that boost becomes a bit higher. In terms of scalability, it is a definite Yes since your app can support different clients of very varied types.
The thing to remember is that all the above comes with a bit of a learning curve. Dynamically creating Xml Strings, writing Xsl stylesheets and debugging the whole application is easy only when you know how. I suggest before tinkering with an already built app you start playing with something small until you feel conformtable with Xml.
This Web Link could start you on your new Xml adventures:
http://www.devguru.com/Features/tuto...nning_xml.html
Regards,
Abdel
For n-tier application
