[Webdev] apache-xml

[Eamonn Newman]

John Moylan wrote:
> 
> Maybe I should be more specific with my errors:
> 
> I'm trying to set up xalan, and run some of the samples but I'm not
> having a very good time of it,
> Undefined classes everywhere,eg
> 
> running :
> java SimpleTransform
> 
> results in :
> java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/xml/sax/ext/LexicalHandler
> etc

It still looks like a classpath error to me ... but any more than that I
can't say.

> 
>  I'm sorry if this is a little off topic for our brand new list, or is
> it?
>  XML is becoming more important and the apache-xml project look damn
> fine..if I can get it working.
> 

I'm a big fan of XML myself (well, as a web development medium; I'm also
trying to write an MSc on it. There's a real love-hate thing going on
here ...)

There's a lot to be said for the separation of content, programming and
design (there's that 3-tier architecture again) in web development. Not
only does it simplify maintenace (ie give your site a complete facelift
by changing only one or two XSL files), but development can be a sort of
"graceful upgradation", where incremental improvements and augmentations
are continuous throughout the development process (eg dummy scripts
replaced, page layout corrected etc.)

The whole area of collaborative maintenance also falls under this
architecture. Applications like Zope (www.zope.org) harness the power of
XML to provide users the ability to admin, design, program or add
content to a site. 

I realise most of the above can be applied to any tri-tiered site
architecture. Basing the underlying data on XML allows you to use that
data in different ways relatively simply (well, much more simply than
trying to work backward from HTML). I can take an XML file and write XSL
files to convert it to HTML, or WML, or PDF or LaTeX etc etc. 

Personally, I think the real power of XML is in the portability of the
data combined with the mechanisms given by standards such as XSL, XPath,
XLink etc. 

> 
> Anyone got some pointers?
> 

Rather than just dump my entire bookmark file ... any particular area ?

eamonn