please comment on technologies

[luc wastiaux]

In article <HqCqa.8931$3M4.241359 at news1.tin.it>, Alex Martelli wrote:
>> The project would be developped by a group of 4 to 6 CS students
>> (including me), over a three months timespan (but not full time, we have
>> to go to classes and other stuff)
> 
> The most valuable thing you'll learn will be how to structure your
> work.  I heartily recommend incremental development (most crucial
> features first), test-driven design, pair programming, and a healthy
> diffidence towards "big design up front" - you may get the temptation
> of designing in some big chunks of infrastructure preparing for future
> enhancements... that may never come.
> 

In short, you recommend following extreme programming guidelines, did I 
understand your advice correctly ?


>> Spyce today and it looks like I could use it for the web interface.
> 
> Sure, that's one possibility.  Personally I'd choose Webware, which
> offers an amount of flexibility I appreciate, but Spyce's OK too.

I will have a look a webware. I was looking forward to using spyce because 
it features <?php style tags to embed code into HTML templates, does 
webware have that ?
I just know webware from this url: 
http://colorstudy.com/docs/shootout.html

> 
>> Then I have this idea about using XSL for templating, the idea is not only
>> to separate the data from the representation, but also allow programmers
>> to "leech off" the search engine (it's easier to do this if the output is
>> XML).
> 
> The ability for other programmers to send "queries" to your search
> engine and get XML output is good.  However, personally, I would avoid
> XSL (unless you guys are already well familiar with it -- or NEED to
> get very familiar with it anyway to pursue your studies).  It's simpler
> to have separate URLs, or a form field requesting XML or HTML output,
> and just use different templates with the same contents -- doing your
> templating in Cheetah (or preppy/Spyce/whatever).

Ok, I thought XSL was the definitive answer to all templating needs, but 
you don't seem very excited about it ?

thanks a lot for all your comments and advice!

-- 
luc wastiaux
 $ finger luc at info.4002.org