Database Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 9
Building Applications
eXist is a great platform not only for storing and querying XML data, but also for
building web applications. Returning pages in (X)HTML is a breeze, since XHTML
is
XML and XML is eXist's bread and butter. Conveniently, because your data is in
XML and the programming language is XML-aware, there is no “impedance”
between the layers (data storage, processing, presentation). Piece of cake, isn't it?
Well, maybe a marketing department (if one existed) would try to sell you this high-
tech fairy tale. But as we all know, programming is hard work, whatever your envi‐
ronment or toolset. Silver-bullet environments don't exist.
However, that being said, eXist does represent an excellent platform on which to
build web applications. For applications that work with XML (or can be redesigned to
work with XML), increases in development speed and decreases in code base size are
often realized when compared to undertaking the same projects in Java or PHP for
example. It's not a panacea, but it can certainly help you in specific situations.
Overview
A web application is an application that is accessed over the Internet (or an intranet)
and uses a web browser as its client. URLs passed from the browser are mapped to
something on the server (a static page, a script that accesses a database, a CSS file, an
image, etc.). Together this constitutes some meaningful functionality to the applica‐
tion's users, such as accounting, playing games, or making friends. An application
residing on a server typically consists of multiple files/resources. Some of these are
scripts that, once executed, do something like querying or updating a database. Oth‐
ers are static, like CSS files and images. Another category is internal data, which is not
shown directly to the user but used internally for configuration, lookup tables, and
more.
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