Cart
[Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries]
Scott DeMers <demerss1@m...> asks: > > Greetings -- > > I run some websites for a university, and I am curious about > using XML for some of my projects. I would like some opinions > on the following (I'm somewhat new to XML, so feel free to > correct any errors): > > 1. Content management - Storing data in XML files using a DTD > like Website. Currently, data is stored in a database, which > works fine, but I'm curous about the advantages of XML storage. The debate is ongoing. My 2 cents? No advantage as far as storage itself goes, the real value add is in what you can do with XML. As such, getting XML out of a database is a consideration, whether the database supports that directly or you end up adding a middle layer between the database and everything else. To that end, I'll note one possibility you're sort of skirting around which is Web site management/development itself. I use XML driven content and XSLT to separate the content of web sites from the presentation. All XHTML is coded in a single XSLT, all data is stored in one single XML location (be it a database or a file). Thus, if I make a change to a presentation element I make the change only once, if I make a change to a common data element I make it only once, and all changes shows up on every page that the presentation or data is referenced on automagically. > 2. XUL - Many of our dynamic sites are maintained by students > via an HTML interface. I've played with XUL, and it seems to > have potential for internal pages like this, although HTML > currently serves this purpose well. > > 3. RSS - One I'm quite certain we'll be using for calendar > events and news headlines. > > Please chime in on any of the above topics, or suggest some I > haven't considered that would make a web site easier to > maintain and more useful for users. > > Thanks a bunch, >
|
