Efficient Wireless Design
By David H. Young
Today's emerging wireless world reminds me of the Internet's early days—instead of HTML and HTTP, we now have WML, WAP, and Compact HTML for Web phones and handhelds, SMS for pagers, and even VoiceXML for POTS (plain old telephone system). Protocols and languages are popping up everywhere. Fortunately, unifying technologies are emerging to link application servers and Web applications with the wireless world.
My company, Lutris Technologies, developed an open source XML compiler called Enhydra XMLC (XML Compiler). Enhydra delivers wireless content and is an alternative to methods that use Java and XML with XSL.
As popular as XSL has become, a pure XSL strategy has limitations in large development projects. This may not matter for a small- footprint screen, but it can slow browsers using the same application. From a project management standpoint, XSL developers have some of the same problems that HTML designers have with JavaServer Pages (JSP). Integrating programming logic with a markup language requires technical development that reaches beyond most designers' skills—a situation aggravated by the lack of mature XSL development tools. So, designers must rely on developers, and when designers need programmers regularly, it slows a project down.
Lutris developed Enhydra XMLC in April 1999 with the goal of reducing such programmer-designer interdependencies. Its features reflect two waves of evolution. Initially, Lutris designed XMLC as an alternative to JSP to allow nontechnical designers and Java developers to work independently. Then, Enhydra XMLC was improved by input from the Enhydra development community and the open source process.
