Web Software

[Adrian Wong]

Originally posted by patrickrd
Now, personally, I think you have to throw away the HTML altogether Using XML along with XSL transforms & style sheets allows you to completely separate content from layout and formatting. For example one change to the XSL transform would instantly change the way all pages on your entire site look. Unfortunately this technology was only standardized in the past year so very few browsers yet enable it, so for now the transformations need to take place on server side.

That was one of the plans for a system I'm developing this year. Storing robot scouting data in an XML format allows XSLT transformations into XHTML (for display over the Internet) or VXML (for listening over the phone). I'm still in the process of learning how to tackle this problem, but some folks from SOAP108 seem interested in the project as well.

I'm trying to learn the finer nuances for VXML. I've managed to rattle together a short application that is a small proof of concept for the 2002 season. If any of you would like to try it out, call 1-800-555-8355. After listening to the advertisements, press 134778. The only option right now is to "get data", on "a team" for team numbers 190, 596, or 800. These are just some test cases that allow me to debug the system.

Hopefully, a large company like Motorola, Lucent, or AT&T would like to cooperate with this project and allow us use of their Voice Browsers. The TellMe Studio browser (at the number listed above), contains many advertisements and delays.

Back to the original topic however, it'd be so nice to have the data stored in a nice format like XML, available for export to many different formats. Maybe even running an RDF file off the server so teams can grab their latest statistics or something. Oh, all these ideas in my head, not enough time to become technically competent to execute them.