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Brett McLaughlin provides an overview of Web publishing frameworks in "Chapter 9: Web Publishing Frameworks" of his book, Java and XML:
Just as a web server is responsible for responding to a URL request for a file, a web publishing framework is responsible for responding to a similar request; however, instead of responding with a file, it often will respond with a published version of a file ... that may have been transformed with XSLT, or massaged at an application level, or converted into another format such as a PDF.
In his November 2000 article, What's So Great About XML?, Didier Martin outlines the advantages of "using XML as an intermediate stage in content delivery" in a Web publishing system. He notes that, by using XML-based Web publishing frameworks, one can use XSLT, DSSSL, or another transformation language to render the XML-formatted data into whatever output formats might be required. By doing so, one can relatively easily support a large variety of devices, including many different types of traditional HTML-based browsers, as well as cell phones, PDAs, and voice information systems. As new types of Internet-enabled 'appliances' emerge, it will be relatively easy to add support for these devices, as well.
Brett McLaughlin also notes that, as of mid-2000, most XML-based Web publishing framework products are still in their infancy:
... the list of frameworks is small, and the list of good and stable ones is even smaller. ... Don't be surprised if you have a hard time finding a product whose version tag is greater than 2.x. In fact, you may have to search diligently to even find a second-generation framework. ... The XML publishing system is such a new beast that the market is being flooded with 1.0 and 1.1 products that simply are not stable enough for practical use.
The following are selected XML-based frameworks which are of current or potential future interest to the XML/XSL project:
Cocoon is a Java-based, open source Web publishing framework from the Cocoon Project, developed under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. As Brett McLaughlin notes, Cocoon:
Some sources of information about Cocoon include:
As of this writing (in late October 2000), Cocoon is in transition between the 1.x releases and a new, 2.x release, based on a substantially revised architecture. The Cocoon Project provides an overview of Cocoon 2, and Brett McLaughlin's "Web Publishing Frameworks" book chapter also offers some early guidance regarding Cocoon 2's directions.
AxKit is a Perl-based Web publishing framework, modelled upon the ideas of the Cocoon project.
Some sources of information about AxKit include:
AxKit's primary author, Matt Sergeant, compares AxKit with Cocoon in one of his ApacheCon 2000 presentation slides and in the Introduction to AxKit.
The following Web sites provide links to other XML-based Web publishing frameworks.
URL:http://seaotter.berkeley.edu/xml/web-publishing.html
Last modified on Wednesday, 09-May-2001 15:58:32 PDT