In our research group, we are building a nanoscale semiconductor device simulation software called “nextnano”.
This project started over 10 years ago. At that time, “nextnano” was developed in Fortran (as almost any piece of scientific software). As the project grew bigger and bigger a new generation of doctoral candidates decided to rework the code and use an object oriented programming language, namely C++.
Object oriented design patterns reduced the lines of code to about 20% compared to the Fortran version. However, more and more doctoral candidates implemented more and more physical models into “nextnano++” and nextnano became a code monster again.
Two years ago, two new doctoral candidates had the problem, that is was almost impossible to include new features to “nextnano++” due to the very complex structure and dependencies of the C++ source code.
Hence, Thomas and I decided to do another reimplementation cycle of nextnano, this time in C#. Therefore, we moved from a custom text-based input-file format to a fully scriptable XML input file.
Since “nextnano.net” has many input parameters (description of the device, simulation parameters, numerical control parameters,…), the XML structure is quite complicated and the XSD file has more than 2000 lines.
At that point, we greatly benefit from XML Studio, since we can design the XSD scheme graphically.
Currently, “nextnano.net” has the status of “work in progress” and we introduce/change/delete/move input-parameters very often.
Here, XML Studio (and the integration into Visual Studio) saves us a lot of time.
As you can see, we are using only a very small part of XML Studio, but this small part is of great importance to us.
I must repeat once again - you do agreat job with Liquid XML Studio.
Peter Greck
HAN University of Applied Sciences
We are using Liquid XML Studio in our curriculum because of its ease-of-use and intuitive user interface.
Liquid Technologies has provided us with educational licenses for our Academy and we are pleased with their excellent support and short response times on enquiries.
Our students are enthusiastic and use it in our system-integration courses. It motivates them to learn more about XML. Liquid XML Studio has proven itself as a valuable tool for quickly understanding XML and XML-Schemas for our students.
Marcel G.G. Verheij MIB
Lecturer
Academy of Communication and Information Technology
HAN University of Applied Sciences
Arnhem, The Netherlands
Collège de l'Outaouais
I am a teacher in a college in Québec, Canada, where we offer a 3 year postsecondary program in software development. I teach a 2nd year course that includes XML basic principles and application development. I have been using Liquid XML Studio for 2 years.
There are several useful features which make XML Studio a valuable teaching tool:
* The interface is intuitive and easy to learn
* The XML editor is easy to use thanks to features such as color coding, design mode and Intellisense
* The XPath query builder is very useful in testing queries since results displayed by highlighting selected nodes directly in the source XML code. It also generates code snippets for C#, Java, VB .Net which speeds up application development.
* A validating parser uses DTDs or XML schemas to check for correctness, providing informative messages if errors are encountered.
* XML schemas can be created in different ways:
* with an editor which uses Intellisense
* by converting a DTD
* by automatic inference from XML source code
* with the Graphic design mode which offers a visual representation for easy design and update
* The XSLT editor which offers the same features as XML editor and generates output from XML data
I find that XML Studio is a very good tool for teaching basic aspects of XML and quite useful for creating and managing XSD schemas.
Louis Charbonneau
Département d'Informatique
Cégep de l'Outaouais
Quebec, Canada.