RissRoss

FINAL CLASS BLOG

With the final hours of the class closing in, I just wanted to say that I am really glad I took this class.  I have found this last project especially interesting and exciting to work on.  It was hard to get started on at first, but as my great project member Tom pointed out, you just have to sit down with your computer for long periods of time and study it that way.  I found that to be extremely true.  For the first project, I found the SQL book extremely beneficial; however, for this project, the class book was not that helpful.  For this kind of project, it was really about sitting down and trying to figure out what to do through example mark up pages and stylesheets.  The project called for much more trial and error.  However, once you were able to construct the necessary pages to grasp one type of view, the others came along a lot more easily, as you were able to slightly reconstruct them to fit your needs for the next view.

Through working on the project I have also realized that while the computer has opened us up to many great things and efficient ways of doing tasks, malfunctions always arise which can cause great problems and inefficiencies.  The computer, after all, is only as smart as we have created them to be. A couple nuisances to point, which my group experienced, were system failures that put our work on hold at times, and Oracle's case sensitive trait which gave my group some saving file issues.      

In any case, next semester I plan on showing the Community Consulting president the administrative interface my group has constructed in order for her to think about using such a site to help  reach the club's goals.  I know a team member of mine from the Club wanted to work on restructuring the Club and streamlining its resources, so perhaps it will be a project the club can divulge in next semester.

As a closing note, I would just like to thank Bud and the class for a great semester.  Hopefully we will all continue to blog through other mediums in the future.  Happy holidays to everyone, and have a great break.  See you all next year.   

PS- did we need to fill out a team evaluation form?  I recall something of the sort being referred to on the course tools site. 

Tuesday's Class

I just wanted to comment on Tuesday’s class, and say that I thought it was very beneficial.  My group and I made a lot of headway during that class.  Individually, we had each been tackling the different components of the project, trying to thoroughly understand each element necessary to yield our final html and/or rss product.  However, we were having a hard time producing a functional product.  As Bud commented on in his final notes, we must produce something that actually works.  Fortunately, by the end of Tuesday’s extended class, my group had a functional page working!  It was very exciting to have finally gotten to that point after going at it for a long time. 

Gradually everything is being connected in my mind.  I think that the class projects which make you actually use your knowledge to produce something useful are the best learning tools.  Currently I understand a good portion of the material when reading it and skimming through the markups on the computer; however, I am not fully capable of implementing my knowledge to produce actual results we see on the computer. While it is good to understand the information in order to know for the future how everything I am doing is coming together; I am hoping that I am able to create these pages on my own by the end of the project.  Therefore, implementation and functionality are the goals.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s semi-done projects on Thursday; hopefully the presentations will improve my understanding.   

As a connected comment, I would like to add that I think the W3 tutorials are a great resource.  Reading through them after classes really evolved my understanding of the material.  There are also many other great tutorials and other information on XML and RSS and what not on the web.  For those interested, I found a good website on CSS- click here.  I am still trying to learn RSS for when my group is ready to tackle that goal.  Hopefully I will be able to blog about how to successfully create that, as I have been reading up on it and taking notes.

End of Year Thoughts on Blogging

After looking through the recent posts, I have decided to deliver my thoughts on blogging now (instead of waiting until after Thursday).  I enjoyed reading Jason's comments on class blogging throughout the year.  I agree that, overall, the blogs were a great asset to the class.  I think the blogs helped the class communicate- with one another, and each individual with Bud.  Moreover, class discussion never really had to end just because the class was over for the day or week. 

While email could also serve as the medium to continue discussion outside of class, I don’t think it would be as effective as blogging.  It was easy to logically link class memebers’ comments back to one another and draw upon all the interrelated statements at once thanks to the class weblog space.  These nice features were made possible through links, trackbacks, and comments.  While everyone could tag onto the same email and keep replying to all, the document would get lengthy and fill up large spaces in people’s mail boxes.  Furthermore, I think that blogs, unlike email, were able to deter class members from only communicating back and forth to a few members of the class, rather than the whole. Through individual emails, not everyone would be able to benefit from the great insights class members shared on their sites.  In addition, I think that it was easier with the use of the weblog features to find old comments one wanted to go back to or view for the first time, as well as find comments relating to a certain topic.  Personally, whenever I was confused about a class topic I would simply search the blogs for answers to my questions, and sometimes found comfort in realizing my classmates felt similar confusion.

I would definitely encourage blogs to be a part of Bud's future classes, and other professors’ classes for that matter. However, for non-computer classes, I don’t think blog quality and participation should be graded.  I think other classes could set up a weblog smartspace simply to have in place a useful tool to resource.   

In terms of blog grading for BIT320, while I understand Jason's dislike of the grading policy, I found it had some benefits.  I think that attaching a grade to the blogs initially got people to start blogging.  Furthermore, on a personal level, I think blogging got me to provide myself with set times during the week to really read through other students' blogs and thoroughly read the course material in order to make worthwhile comments.  Therefore, knowing I should blog a couple of times a week helped me keep myself on tract because I would correlate blogging time with review and study time for the class.  If the blog requirement was able to encourage all to keep on track with the course material, then I think the blog grade is more of a general participation grade, which most classes give.  However, as Jason touched upon, everyone has their own personal ways of communicating, studying, and learning; therefore, it is not necessarily fair to give a blog grade.  Furthermore, following a standard blog frequency is difficult- sometimes one may have a lot to say and spurt out a number of blogs within a week, while during other weeks they may just have no useful insights to supply or pertinent questions to ask.  However, I don’t think that requiring blogs produced less beneficial blogs.  I think that when people blogged they tried to make their blogs meaningful.  I do not recall reading through many meaningless or useless blogs.

As for changes to the blog, I think that there should be an initial class dedicated to setting up the blogs in the most useful format- say through feedreader.  I think this makes it easier on everyone to remain updated with the blogs throughout the entire semester, and makes the process of sifting through the blogs much easier and more time efficient.  I think that if everyone had this tool at the beginning of the course, they would blog more frequently.  The only other change I can think of at the moment is for the class to come up with a list of relevant categories to subject the headings under.  I think that initially in class there were many irrelevant categories listed, but more importantly, there were not relevant categories available for every class subject.  This semester we added significant categories to the list, and I think that a relevant list should be provided for next semester’s class to subject its blogs under.  I think that searching by these categories is a great way to learn each subject during the class.

Drawing all these points together, I believe that the blogs were very resourceful for the class.  I learned a lot through other people's blogs.  In addition, I think I learned from writing my own blogs.  It helped me put my thoughts down, and I think that being able to write about a subject truly tests your knowledge of the subject matter.  I know that I had to try to understand certain topics better in order to present my thoughts in a comprehendible format through my blogs. 

Chatper 6 Questions

After looking over Bud's notes on Chapter 6, I would like to attempt to answer some of the questions, and pose others.  Any feedback on the validity of my answers or my questions would be great. 

Page 100: I think that the template first applied is for coffee, because the match template to coffee is the most specified (more specified than match = "@*|node ()."  I also think that this template is applied to coffee and the new online element, but not the children of coffee because the template for them is overridden by the other template specified.  However, in terms of question 3 for page 100, I am not sure of the answer.  Any thoughts?

Page 108: I think that the template that matches regions avoids matching attributes by elimianting the @ symbol in the match equation.  However, I am unsure as to what the * symbol refers to.

Page 113: Unsure of the answer to this question-- any thoughts?

Page 116: These empty template rules suppress the copying of the source elements they match to the output because matching an empty template rule tells the processor to grab a node set and do nothing with it.  According to Wagner, "an empty template rule is one that has a match pattern defined but no accompanying template."  If these templates were not present in the stylesheet then I think that the coffee applied template would be apply to them.  Is that correct?

Comments on CourseTools Article

Gradually I am trying to understand each part of the data transformation process.  It was helpful to read the article referred to us by Bud through Course Tools.  I liked the article's analogy relating XPath to XML as SQL is to relational databases.  Furthermore, the article made it nice and simple to understand XML and XSLT by simply stating that the data exists in XML and the structure exists in XSLT.  Through an example, the article shows you that to transfer the XML data into the format you want, you must input a reference to the XSLT stylesheet that orders the structure the way you desire.  However, I am confused as to the next step in order to get your desired output.  Does this XML document then have to flow through some server to produce the new document?  The article was not very clear on this. 

In addition to the above question, I have a few more, some of which have already been posed by Xiaohan in her blog.  First, what is CSS?  I do not recall learning about this in class.  I thought design was also taken care of by a segment of XSLT.  Furthermore, what does it mean when it associates behavior with JavaScript.  What is the article referring to by mentioning behavior?  Lastly, in the transformation example it applies, the match template equals "/" -- does that mean it wants to match everything, the whole document?

While I am a little puzzled with these questions, overall the article helped to clarify XSLT.  More importantly, the article gave an example of how to reference a XSLT stylesheet in a XML document in order to transform its structure.  To keep increasing my level of understanding I will need to do many of my own practices of this transformation because it still is confusing to me. 

Some Insight

Although in a recent post I attempted to summarize the information we are learning in class, I wound up confusing myself on the class' main goal and XSQL's role in that picture.  However, after reviewing Bud's post on project 2, the whole picture is a lot more clear to me.  It seems that the major process we are learning is how to present selected query results in HTML to be viewed over a web browser such as Internet Explorer.  To do this, first we need to have the query results written in XML.  Having the results in XML will make the data readable by the multiple audiences it will need to pass through in order to be presented in HTML.  XSQL is needed in order to transform the queries into XML.  Then, in order to turn this XML data into HTML, we use XSLT.  XSLT uses XPath and Template Rules to select the requested data and format it correctly in HTML to be viewed over the web.  Therefore, the process chain looks something like this: SQL queries --->(XSQL) --->XML --->(XSLT) -->HTML.      

Blogs as the catalyst for promoting bottom-up change | MySmartChannels

Link: Blogs as the catalyst for promoting bottom-up change | MySmartChannels.

Commenting on Krysta's blog, I think that using blogs to communicate within businesses theoretically sounds like a great idea; however, I think that many complications would arise out of using such a tool. For one, there are privacy issues to be concerned with. Although the blog sites could be posted on internal networks to avoid the public eye, I fear that there is always the possibility that somehow unwanted audiences manage to view the data; it is hard to regulate a site’s audience across the Internet. Second, there is the question of anonymity. Most likely employees would want their comments to be anonymous so as not to be shunned within the business if they make an unpopular remark or because they fear their remarks may have them fired. I am not sure if it would be possible to have an anonymous blog site within the company, it would be an interesting idea to find out more about. Third, it would be difficult to know when and if employees and management were reading the blogs. Possibly it could be made a mandatory policy to read the blogs once a week. However, if the business is large, it will be very difficult to read so many blogs coming from thousands of different employees and managers. Even in our small class of no more than 30 people, it is hard to read everyone's posts weekly and, more importantly, comment on them. Continuous blog reading and updates are necessary for the communication channel to be effective. Furthermore, comments, links and trackbacks are important blog qualities that enhance the effectiveness of the blogs. Employees individually posting their own thoughts without checking in on other employee’s thoughts would not serve the same effect as if everyone were to read each others posts and comment on them. Within our class, I find groups of interrelated posts to often be the most engaging and educational.

In any case, the article Krysta pointed out seemed to be talking more about blogging as an effective way for marketing the company and providing public information than as an employe-manager communication channel. Blogging in terms of these uses can be very effective as well. I think that blogging as a marketing tool can be very effective. The two-way communication serves to promote companies while providing the public with valuable information. However, there are complications here as well. As the article Krstya refers to mentions, you don't want the public image being negatively affected by these blogs due to confusion between employees' thoughts and comments versus the corporate communication's policies and values. Therefore, perhaps company’s should possess two blog sites, one to be maintained in an internal network for employee-manager communication and another be opened to public view containing company update information inputted by elected employees.

The Dream Team

Ok, so over the past two weeks we have consumed a mass of information.  To categorize our learning in the most concise terms, we have learned all about the basics of the "Dream Team" plus XSQL.  XML seems to be at the center of all the information we are learning, the raw material of the data that is constantly exchanged over the Internet to multiple parties.  It is a computer language that can be read by multiple audiences, transformed to desire outputs and formats, and used to answer queries.  However, in order for this data to be useful to various people via the Internet, the other players of the Dream Team are needed- XSL, XSLT, and XPATH.  Without these other players, XML is not as functionable as you may refer back to Maulin's blog. mentioning of this XML aspect.  XSLT is necessary to transform the data from one XML format to another, and can output it in HTML language as well.  Basically, XSLT can convert XML data into any desired output.  This is an important language capability for information that is going out to multiple audiences.  The flexibility of XML allows many people to interpret the raw data through different programs and web servers.  The XSLT processor takes the raw data from the XML document, looks at the style template requests set up by the stylesheet, performs the requested transformation, and outputs the restults to a new file.  XSLT processes the XML material with the help of an XSL stylesheet.   An XSLT stylesheet is a well-formed (contains beginning tags, and ending tags for each beginning tag) XML document, which specifies the data requested in the output and notes the requested style/format of the data.  The stylesheet therefore answers two questions: 1) "What information from the original XML document do you want?, 2) "How would you like the new document structured?  What format?"  XPath answers the first question, while XSLT template rules (described in the stylesheet) answers the second questions. 

While there are many details to learn concerning the uses and formats of all the Dream Team players, I have tried to cover the big picture with my above statements.  As a short summary, XSLT processes XML documents in order to transform them into requested output forms.  As a side note, XSQL is a servlet, as I mentioned in my previous post, that processes SQL queries and displays the answers in XML. 

After summarizing the big picture, I have a few questions to pose to the class concerning the details of this major process.  First, why does it seem the same URI is used for all XSL stylesheets when the Dummies book says URIs are unique?  Second, I am confused as to what a root node is.  In the Dummies book, it says that a root node "contains all elements, including the document element."  However, I thought the document element encompassed all the information.  Therefore, what exactly is the root node?  the book says it is invisible, and therefore the concept of a root node is hard to comprehend. 

Posting Difficulties

All of a sudden i am having trouble with my posts.  In the last post I wrote up, the links are not being presented as they should.  In addition, one is not even functioning as a link to the specified website.  I am confused by this sudden complication, because in the past I have always been able to link correctly to websites I am referring to.  Can anybody guess what might have gone wrong?

XSQL

It appears that the majority of the class is confused by all the new material we are branching into, and I am a member of this confused segment.  Fortunately, the recent posts on XML have helped me to obtain a much greater understanding of XML.  Together, Maulin's and Jonathan's blogs help to describe and characterize XML very well.  I think that Jonathan's (BIT) blog points out an important distinction that needs to be understood - that XML is a a text markup system rather than a programming language or DMBS.  Anyone who is still confused should read these blogs, if they have not already.

However, after reading the blogs on XML, I was still confused as to what XSQL was and how it relates to XML.  Therefore, I looked up some websites relating to XSQL.  The best link I have found so far is Generating XSQL Server Pages. The article relates all the topics we are currenlty discussing in class, including XML, XSQL, HTML, and SQL.  What I gathered from the website is the following: 

XSQL is a servlet provided by Oracle, the database management system we have been using in class.  The servlet processes SQL queries and outputs the results as XML.  Therefore, Oracle XSQL pages are XML datapages with embedded SQL queries.  You can build an XSQL page by including an <xsql:query> tag in your XML file at the place where you want the SQL to be exectued.  The <xsql:query> element will be replaced by the XML output of your query. The input and output data flows from a client to the servlet and back to the client.  For a complete description of the data flow you should read the article.   

After all this reading, I am still a little shaky on some of the material, but I definitely have a better overall feeling of all the subject matter.  I have a feeling that my understanding and knowledge of the material will grow as I continue carry out more of the class exercises.  However, I believe that the blogs everyone has been contributing are essential to the class' understanding of the material.  Therefore, anyone with more helpful insight into the material, please feel free to share your wealth of knowledge.