Mailing-List: contact cocoon-dev-help@xml.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Message-ID: <39526759.9188FD72@apache.org>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:22:01 +0200
From: Stefano Mazzocchi <stefano@apache.org>
Organization: Apache Software Foundation
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: cocoon-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: Thoughts on a data-driven web site
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Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> 
> Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> 
> > > Is content generation and styling at all related???
> >
> > IMHO: no. I could not find (so far) an example where a complete
> > separation cannot be performed.
> 
> Let me use another term than "Content Generation" and perhaps you see my point (even
> though I am not sure myself if it is valid. RT!)
> 
> Instead I will call it 'content composition'.
> 
> I may have a dozens of sources of data, some of it is in 'raw' format, some in XML
> and some in other useable formats, such as jpegs.
> 
> To 'compose' the content, prior to 'generating' your SAX stream, could be a fairly
> complex task, and that is my point.

Oh, totally agreed here.

> In Cocoon today/tomorrow, we are hardly been focusing anything at all on
> 'composition' of content. And that's where I can see a distinct context border for
> separating the efforts within Cocoon.

Ok, I see it now and I agree.

> The 'composition' side would, for instance, be responsible for the RDF stuff,
> inter/intra-business document transformations, and so on. The 'styling' is
> responsible for delivering the content in a human usable form, whatever that might be
> at any point in time.

well, I would not go that far.

I did consulting for a company that build just that: a layout driven
pipeline approach (nothing cocoon-related unfortunately, they use their
own C++/CORBA proprietary framework). I applied Cocoon patterns and
paradigms to their old model to improve it. They implemented a sort of
huge extention to formatting objects then they have incredibly complex
HTML serializers that are able to create HTML that "fits" the geometry
of the page and restructure the page accordingly... awesome stuff on
paper.

Anyway, I agree that "content composition" and "SAX generation" are
different things and can be layered.

-- 
Stefano Mazzocchi      One must still have chaos in oneself to be
                          able to give birth to a dancing star.
<stefano@apache.org>                             Friedrich Nietzsche
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