XML/XSLT Editors/Tools

[Buffy]

Got any favorites among the absolutely oodles of these things out there? Opinions?

Hackers 'R Us,
Buffy

[alexander]

emacs, kdevelop...

[Tormod]

I just do it all within Dreamweaver.

[Buffy]

Well, what I'm really looking into are tools that specifically build and manage XML DTDs and XSLT stylesheets to go with them. The top ones I've stumbled upon so far are:

• Stylus Studio
• Altova XMLSpy
• Oxygen

kdevelop has a syntax checker/directed editing for XML and XSLT, but I'm looking for a tool to *manage* a large collection (in fact provide the basis for generating) of data tables and queries that have to be displayed.

Lemme know if you've got experience with or opinions about these or others...

Thanks!
Buffy

[anglepose]

try some macromedia product they might help

[Qfwfq]

There's the old joke about the Big Boys, the ones that write the books for web dev topics like JavaScript-JSP and onward, being interviewed by the PC-mag journalists. When asked which tool they use, they often smile and reply: "Visual Notepad!"

I must admit, I'm not quite so Amish, when I've had to do that kind of stuff I usually use Visual UltraEdit-32.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

There's the old joke about the Big Boys, the ones that write the books for web dev topics like JavaScript-JSP and onward, being interviewed by the PC-mag journalists. When asked which tool they use, they often smile and reply: "Visual Notepad!"

Ha! Around here we pretty much use HomeSite out of habit, since the syntax support is acceptable (code Edit-mode only, no "visual" Design-mode stuff for us...), including SQL scripting, although even that is a pain for configuration/change management: we've got about 400 sprocs in our app (uh oh, here comes alexander to scold us for using SQLServer....). We've started to play with some tools like Embarcadero Technologies to speed up the maintenance of our scripts though. Also, there are a few of us around here who can still write hairy data analysis selects from scratch, but the younger kids all start with generated selects built with SQLServer EntManager or similar tools.

I'll put in a plug here for my friends at Perforce: if you don't use a decent code management system, you're a total amateur...

I personally think that its stupid not to use a visual tool unless it doesn't do what you want--which is actually my big complaint about Dreamweaver: its constantly trying to "outthink" you--macho, show-offy "I code in *assembler*" stuff is not good for the bottom line!

Thanks for the tip Q, I'll check it out...

Cheers,
Buffy

[alexander]

kdevelop then, its a good development environment with just about every API available at a drag of a button, excellent support for any language synthax highlighting, makes css development a lt easier as you can collapse individual styles or style tree definitions and such making it loads easier on your eyes, its got a pretty good xml support, so i'd suggest to play with it... other then that, you can make emacs make you coffee, so if you wanted to write a little lisp script, you can make a crazy XML editor, fairly effortlessly if you know what you were doing

[Buffy]

Understand all that. To clarify what I'm looking for:

XML is not something we're *writing* its generated by database queries, and having a *tool* to maintain DTDs based on a very large database schema, which is *changing over time* is the piece number one. Number two is that we have standardized some of the display elements based on what would go into those DTDs, and we want to generate and maintain XSLT code that can be sliced and diced into place.

The tools mentioned above appear to do some of this in much the same way as for example Bradbury's TopStyle CSS editor does: you actually do edit the code, but there's wysiwyg displays and easy navigation of the entire hierarchies (which are much more complex in xml/xslt than in CSS, but even there, if you're *really* cascading, having the *tool* figure out what's going on is invaluable). Simple syntax directed editing simply does not cut it.

I know I could write my own extensions for emacs, but the point is I don't want to write it myself!

Practical gal,
Buffy

[Qfwfq]

Now yer talkin' Buffy! Yeah that's tricky stuff to manage. What I really meant to say is that the most sofisticated tools I've seen for <XYZ>ML is XML-Spy that you probably know and a tree feature on WebSphere. Perhaps you're wanting one of the big boys to design a new generation of tools...

If it's a consolation, before the stuff I'm doing now, I spent the summer/autumn literally dragging through the conversion of a large number of diversely badly written VB6 projects from Sybase to Oracle. Imagine the endless troubles cropping up! The PL and I automated what we could and worked out routines and best practices but it isn't easy to keep all team members sticking to them, 'specially when some of them aren't brilliant and some are even COBOLmen trying to update their skills. Over here they say "mal comune mezzo gaudio".

At the moment my difficulties are happily more on the mathematical side.

Originally Posted by Buffy

Also, there are a few of us around here who can still write hairy data analysis selects from scratch, but the younger kids all start with generated selects built with SQLServer EntManager or similar tools.

Even if you don't do the actual coding in assembler there's no replacement for really knowing the bedrock.

I've used a variety of tools and each one has it's limits. I've never used Dreamweaver but I agree, I just can't tolerate dumb programs that think they're more intelligent than the user, it makes you loose your patience, doesn't it? TOAD has loads of shortcomings, according to version, I found PLSQL Developer quite good, Uncle Bill's VC++ 6.0 has many advantages on Win32 but for navigating code and getting ends to meet I've seen nothing better so far than JBuilder.

Originally Posted by Buffy

Thanks for the tip Q, I'll check it out...