In this article, we have introduced:
Ø Architectures for JSP
applications
Ø Basic JSP and JDBC
Ø Generating WML (and other
XML) content from database queries using JSP
Ø Customizing the application
and creating a new one
Ø WML and XHTML content from
the same data source using XSLT-controlling Java for output
The main point of this article has been to bring up several
quite general design ideas, and to create a framework for
generating both XHTML and WML content from the same data
source.
In the actual application we looked at, the data source is a
relational database, but it doesn't have to be: the framework is
general enough that anything wrapped in a Properties object or
described by an XML document can be a source of data.
We did not have time to explore the data connection in depth
because our task has been to explore and compare the output
methods: JSP and XSLT. Can we say that one is definitely better
than the other?
In truth, there is probably not yet enough accumulated
experience to pass definitive judgment, especially since in both
cases we are talking about rapidly evolving technologies. Both JSP
and XSLT are extremely powerful tools that are certainly up to the
job. For applications that are maintained by programmers, JSPs are
probably a better choice, if only because they are needed
anyway - why bring in yet another set of tools? However, XSLT
enables non-programmers to do very impressive things, so in an
organizational context where extensibility by non-programmers is
important, XSLT may prove preferable.
In the meantime, the framework presented here provides a test
bed for more exploring and experimentation. Enjoy!
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my business
partner and co-author Tom Myers. Everything here is our joint
effort.
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