Alternatives to the W3C

[Steven Champeon]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2000, Steven Champeon wrote:
> Frankly, I'm thinking of XSL as a server-side technology, especially so
> given that XSLT has roughly the same format and function (though with 
> XML->XML translations rather than XML->HTML translations).

To respond to my own post, I'd like to add that I generally break uses of
XML down into several categories, which overlap somewhat based on the 
workflow vectors the document follows on its way to rendering or storage:

 - simple structured document storage and management (compare with SGML,
   which is still being used for more complex or large legacy document
   storage applications)

 - simple structured data storage and retrieval (as input/output to/from
   databases - IOW, as an intermediate storage format between databases,
   or between database and application - this seems to be what Len and 
   Dave W. are talking about)

 - simple structured document storage, intended for static online display
   and rendering (this is where XSL and XSLT come in - the XML doc is the
   "permanent" storage format, XSL is used to translate the XML doc into
   HTML, and XSLT may be used for translation between one XML DTD and 
   another, perhaps so that CSS stylesheets may be developed for the final
   XML/HTML output, and multiple DTDs can be used for "permanent" storage,
   as long as they map to the "final output" DTD, which will be rendered
   with CSS)

 - simple structured document storage, intended for XML+CSS capable
   browsers (where the XML document is displayed using CSS)

 - inline storage of document metadata for search indexer/engine purposes

But I'm weird like that. I don't see the need or justification behind the
use of database-heavy applications on the server to deliver what is 
essentially static content. As a live index search, maybe, but those apps
tend to be agnostic WRT what document format they happen to be indexing.

I'm sure there are others, I'd love to hear what people here think I've
left out.

YMMV,
Steve



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