XML-Based Software Development

Web Engineering, 2003

This paper presents ADDS, a systematic approach to sofware development using Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) and markup technologies. XML is used as a common descriptive framework for DSLs formulation, obtaining Domain Specific Markup Languages (DSMLs). According to ADDS, the construction of applications in a domain starts with the provision of suitable DSMLs. Then, the applications in such a domain are described by means of sets of structured documents conforming these DSMLs. Finally, the application is produced by processing this documentation according to an operationalization model called OADDS. Hence ADDS provides a systematic approach to software development based on the processing of XMLdocumentation that can be used in a great variety of domains.

The eXtensible Markup Language-XML-is not only a language for communication between humans and the web, it is also a language for communication between programs. Rather than passing parameters, programs can pass documents from one to another, containing not only pure data, but control information as well. Even legacy programs written in ancient languages such as COBOL and PL/I can be adapted by means of interface reengineering to process and to generate XML documents. This paper intends to describe the process and the tools required to accomplish that goal and to present three cases-one for online, one for batch and one for subprograms-to illustrate how XML may be used to integrate existing software systems into the web.

2000

This paper describes a XML-based solution for developing educational hypermedia. This solution is the outcome of the lessons learned in the development of Galatea application, and integrates a hypermedia design methodology (ODH) with a generic technique for the construction of XML-based applications (DTC). Using ODH, designers can describe their application contents, presentation and interaction as XML documents. DTC copes with the development of XML based applications by linking XML documents with component-based software, using document transformations as needed. The combination of both approaches leads to a solution for educational hypermedia development that overcomes some of the main problems that appear in the construction of these applications (communication between educators and developers, explicit representation of the educational strategy that underlies the application, development complexity and maintainability).

Abstract: Our research goal is the generation of working web applications from high level specifications. Based on our experience in using XML transformations for that purpose, we applied this approach to the rapid development of database management applications. The result is an architecture that defines of a web application as a set of XML transformations, and generates these transformations using second order transformations from a database schema.

2005

paper describes DTC (Documents, Transformations and Components), our approach to the XML-based development of content-intensive applications. According to this approach, the contents of an application and other customizable features (e.g. the properties of its user interface) are represented in terms of XML documents. In DTC, the software of the application is organized in terms of reusable components capable of processing specific markup languages. In addition, we use document transformations to fit components and documents together, because they can be reused from pre-existing repositories. In this paper, we describe the DTC approach, illustrating its application in a case study. Because DTC encourages the explicit separation between the description of the application's variability (contents and other customizable features) and the application's operational support, the approach improves maintainability and reuse at both the information and software levels.

1998

The World Wide Web Consortium [W3C] has recently issued XML 1.0 as a Recommendation [XML]. XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is a data format for structured document interchange on the Web. In this paper, we put forward the position that XML, together with (future) standards based on XML, will play an important role in the development of open hypermedia systems. Many of objectives of the XML community are similar to the objectives of the open hypermedia systems (OHS) community. This paper discusses these similarities, but also stresses the differences between the architecture and protocol-oriented approach which is typical for the OHS research community versus the document oriented approach of the XML community.

2000

XML is an SGML-based language designed for the interchange of documents with more flexible and powerful features than those provided by HTML. It can be considered as an intermediate step between HTML and SGML. On one hand, it is a fully conformant SGML application, but without most of the features of SGML that make it complex to handle or that are rarely used. On the other hand, XML is not restricted to a fixed DTD as HTML is: users can choose from the set of available DTDs the one that is best suited for their applications, or develop new ones for fully satisfying their requirements.

2000

Journal of Universal …, 2004

This paper proposes a document oriented paradigm to the development of contentintensive, document-based applications (e.g. educational and hypermedia applications, and knowledge based systems). According to this paradigm, the main aspects of this kind of applications can be described by means of documents. Afterwards, these documents are marked up using descriptive domain-specific markup languages and applications are produced by the automatic processing of these marked documents. We have used this paradigm to improve the maintenance and portability of content-intensive educational and hypermedia applications. ADDS (Approach to Document-based Development of Software) is an approach to software development based on the document oriented paradigm. A key feature of ADDS is that formulation of domain-specific markup languages is a dynamic and eminently pragmatic activity, and markup languages evolve according to the authoring needs of the different participants in the development process (domain experts and developers). The evolutionary nature of markup languages in ADDS leads to OADDS (Operationalization in ADDS), the proposed operationalization model for the incremental development of modular markup language processors. Finally, the document-oriented paradigm can also be applied in the construction of OADDS processors that are also described using marked documents. This paper presents our ADDS approach, including the operationalization model and its implementation as an object-oriented framework. The application of our document-oriented paradigm to the construction of OADDS processors is also presented.

International Journal of Information Retrieval Research, 2011

This paper describes issues and challenges in the design and implementation of interactive client-server applications where program logic is expressed in terms of an extensible markup language (XML) document. Although the technique was originally developed for creating interactive short message service (SMS) applications, it has expanded and is used for developing interactive web applications. XML-Interactive (or XML-I) defines the program states and corresponding actions. Because many interactive applications require sustained communication between the client and the underlying information service, XML-I has support for session management. This allows state information to be managed in a dynamic way. The paper describes several applications that are implemented using XML-I and discusses design issues. The software framework has been implemented in a Java environment.