XSL & Stuff

[Ben Carlson]

http://www.devshed.com/Client_Side/XML/XSLBasics2/

Devshed has some pretty good tutorials on web junk.

Ben Carlson


>From: matthew_heusser at mcgraw-hill.com
>To: grand-rapids-pm-list at happyfunball.pm.org
>Subject: XSL & Stuff
>Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 08:18:40 -0400
>
>
>
>
>... uhh .. sorta.  Let me try to explain ...
>
>SQL Databases are slow, expensive, and take
>clock cycles.  If you've got to store a lot of
>data on a local PC, you don't want to be shipping
>a copy of SQL Server with every app.  That
>said ...
>
> >What do you mean by an "XML database"?
>
>Here's the deal.  Use a nifty, propietary way to store
>data in a compact format.  Create a process to turn a
>single item (product, set of products, whatever) into into
>XML using MS Tools.  This is done on-demand, so
>we don't need to store the data in XML format.
>
>Use XSL to transform that XML into HTML.
>
>This allows us to separate the data storage layer (proprietary)
>from the business logic (make XML) from the presentation
>layer ("Stock" HTML pages that are filled dynamically).
>
>If you think about it, you can create several different XSL "templates",
>and apply a different Template to get a different view of the data.
>
>This is just like "skins" in windows media player, only different.
>
> >If it's more like a data file, then I'm curious about your
> >opinions/experiences with storing the data in independent hierarchical
> >data structures (i.e.- the XML documents)
>
>Too much disk space.
>
> >in contrast to storing data in relations (tables) in a DBMS?
>
>Too much disk space.
>And too expensive.  (Or hard to maintain, if you're an open-sourcer)
>And takes too many clock cycles.
>
>If I _had_ to have the functionality of a database with >10,000,000 records
>and I _needed_ to beat the performance of MS Access, I'd probably look
>for a Indexed Squential Access Method (ISAM) database product, like the
>old informix.  Failing that, I'd try to find a way to get some of the
>functionality
>of a database without the cost/performance penalty.  (Especially if you
>find yourself in a sitatuation where you only need to get data out of the
>database,
>not add to it.)
>
>Just my $0.02.
>
>Is anyone using XML in Perl?  Perl.Net?  Visual Perl?  Komodo? Ruby?
>Anything cool in West Michigan? (No, use cgi; does not count.)
>
>
>Matt H.
>
>


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