doodlehaus

I’ve got a problem. A really annoying problem. I so want to embrace XML. The humungous site that I administer could benefit from the portability and platform neutrality. Oh, it would be wonderful. If only I could wrap my brain around XSL. I’m very close, save for a few annoying bugs that seem to render the technology useless.

I’ve found the simple script for transforming XML with XSL on the server-side, it is both beautiful and elegant:

===================================
<%
‘Load XML
set xml = Server.CreateObject(”Microsoft.XMLDOM”)
xml.async = false
xml.load(Server.MapPath(”foo.xml”))

‘Load XSL
set xsl = Server.CreateObject(”Microsoft.XMLDOM”)
xsl.async = false
xsl.load(Server.MapPath(”bar.xsl”))

‘Transform file
Response.Write(xml.transformNode(xsl))
%>
===================================

and that’s all well and good.

But here’s the fly in the ointment. I’ve found three different namespace declarations, one from Professional ASP XML from Wrox press (a very fine book), and two others at http://www.w3schools.com/.

The namespace from the examples in the Wrox book:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=”http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl”>

allows the script above to function properly.

The other two:
<xsl:stylesheet version=”1.0″ xmlns:xsl=”http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform”>

or

<xsl:transform version=”1.0″ xmlns:xsl=”http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform”>

allow me to successfully create hyperlinks that actually work. Ain’t life grand? I’m about to go read the W3C specs and if I can find an answer. As an alternative, I might hit myself in the face with a shovel.

I work for a large school that is housed within a humungous university. We have our own Web site, each of our departments has their own site, each department has research centers which also have their own sites. Our site visitors, however, have tasks. Thing that they need to do. Stuff they want to learn so they can decide whether or not to apply. Why is this so difficult to impress upon people?

Perhaps it is more comfortable for most people who run the various feifdoms to think of their units in purely physical terms. But surely they can see the shortcomings of this approach to the site structure? Perhaps not. I guess I just needed to think out-loud about this (not that anyone is reading this). Here’s the question: “How do you create a focused site in a highly de-centralized environment?” I put it to you, oh loyal readers.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business Graduate Programs Office now has a shiny new Web site to go along with its incredibly long name. An extended tip of the hat goes to Webmonkey for the brilliant show/hide div script, Colin Moock who wrote the fantastic Moock FPI, and Kaliber10000 who has inspired the content segregation technique and the pixelly approach to the nav buttons.

Also fresh from the lab is the Applied Corprate Finance Program. Same deep hat tips. I grovel before the greatness that inspires me.