- So Why Bother?
- Consumer Expectations
- So What's a Web Application Developer To Do in This New World?
- The Importance of Content Management
- Which Device?
- Into the Future
- Conclusions
The Importance of Content Management
Content must be stored in an abstract, device-independent format. Why is this important? Imagine that your content is a news article and that you want to include a link from this article to another article containing related subject matter. If you simply include this link as an HTML anchor tag like the following, you've taken care of your web site, but what about other platforms?
...as published <A HREF="http://www.torgo.com/article.jsp?art_id=234">here</HREF>...
Suppose instead that you code your links in a context-independent way, using some kind of syntax like this:
...as published <LINK ARTICLE_ID="234">previously</LINK>...
Now you can use XSLT transformations to insert the right link tag syntax and target URL for the device you're addressing. Or you may decide that intra-article links are inappropriate on certain platforms (such as WAP, where a lot of inter-document linking can often make for a confusing user experience), and simply strip them out on these platforms.