XML and SQL: Developing Web Applications

E-Commerce

In the field of e-commerce where transactions have to occur in real time, it's often advantageous to execute some tasks on the fly and others later in a batch mode. For instance, authorizing a payment on a credit card in real time can be done very quickly, whereas actually fulfilling that payment in real time often takes longer and is more prone to error. If you're running an e- commerce system, you want to be able to process orders as quickly as possible and get the customers out the door or back into your catalog where they can do more purchasing.

Apart from any role XML might play in the transaction between you and your clearing bank, you once again can use XML as the glue between different parts of your application. Your “store” ...