Library Web Chic

This week I’m in Austin for ARL’s workshop on Web Development with XML. Over the course of 4 days the workshop is supposed to cover a range of topics from What is XML to XQuery. I signed up mostly for Days 3-4 but thought that after not using some of my XML skills in a while I could use the refresher that Days 1-2 would bring. My last XML class was at least 3 years ago and there are some things that have changed in XML since then. In particular, my previous class spent lots of time on DTDs (yuck) and less time on XML Schemas.

However, today’s discussion was just the opposite because most people are using XML Schema instead of DTDs today. I also got to play with <oXygen/> and see how it helps you to create schemas. The presenter didn’t talk too much about the GUI portion of <oXygen/> for schema creation. I sort of wish he did because I like the visual representation that the GUI offers. That isn’t to say I don’t think that people shouldn’t have to know how to right an XML Schema file from scratch. It is more that taking advantage of the GUI when possible is nice.

Tomorrow is more on schemas and then XSLT. I asked the course instructors if they could talk a tiny, tiny, bit about XML-FO because I have a real need for it. I have lovely EAD finding aids that I need to make print versions of and XML-FO is the way to go. So we will see. I also want to know more about XForms but will likely have to take a separate class for that.