WML Applications using JavaServer Pages (JSP)

Alexander Nakhimovsky, Colgate University

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At risk of going over familiar territory, I would like to start this paper by establishing a common background. Here are some facts that I'm assuming you know:

Ø       XHTML is an XML application. So is WML (and the many other MLs!)

Ø       The Web is going to use XHTML and other XML applications. New "HTML" pages should use XHTML

Ø       XML is also being used increasingly for data storage and data interchange

Ø       The simplified, overall picture of a web application looks like this:

It is a Good Thing to commit to a specific presentation language (WML, XHTML) as late as possible - that is, within the XML transformation layer. This presentation is about how to use JSPs in the transformation layer, and how to structure the overall framework so that only the transformation layer need be changed to retarget your application from desktop browser to WAP-enabled phone, to whatever other device/application. Among other things, this design will keep most of your software investment insulated from future changes to WML and WAP, and from device-type proliferation.

JSP is not the only technology that can be used in the XML transformation layer. In addition to direct competitors like ASP and ColdFusion, there is a language called XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language: Transformations) that's specifically designed for transforming one XML document into another. It will be interesting to watch how the two technologies share this space, and we'll look at an alternative XSLT version of our example in this paper too.