Storing XML/Streaming HTML

[W. Eliot Kimber]

At 03:44 PM 12/4/98 -0000, Michael Kay wrote:
>> I'm helping a company ... make their policies and procedures manual
>> available as an online reference. I am thinking that it makes
>> sense to mark
>> it up as XML: it is 1000 pages and contains lots of chapters and
>> subheadings. Anyway, the question is, have people gone this route yet, of
>> marking up some text in XML and then streaming it to the client
>> (browser) as HTML?
>
>Author it in XML definitely. What I would do with it then, given that this
>is a static manual, is to generate HTML at publication time and store the
>generated HTML on the server in the normal way. That's heresy to many on
>this list, but to my mind it gives the best performance and the least system
>complexity. Of course if you're planning a fancy interactive experience for
>your readers the answer might be different.

It's a very effective technique.  There are also commercial tools like
DynaWeb, Dual Prism, and SIM that will do it for you and provide
high-quality search and retrieval.  See the "tools" section of Robin
Cover's SGML/XML Web site for pointers (<http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/>).

One downside with pregenerating the HTML is that you don't get the enhanced
search and retrieval that XML enables.  A document like a policy and
procedures manual that is presumably supporting people in critical work is
an ideal candidate for highest-possible-quality search and retrieval.  

Cheers,

E.
--
<Address HyTime=bibloc>
W. Eliot Kimber, Senior Consulting SGML Engineer
ISOGEN International Corp.
2200 N. Lamar St., Suite 230, Dallas, TX 75202.  214.953.0004
www.isogen.com
</Address>

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