Month: April 2003

Good Sailing on Good Friday

Dad and I took Wendy out today. We spent an hour or so rummaging around on the boat. It’s amazing what collects over the course of 34 years. Dad put it best when he said, “Essentially, this boat is a floating Winnebago that a couple of old folks owned for thirty years.”

The wind was really howling but Wendy handled it with ease. It had shifted direction about 90 degrees from where it was two weekends ago which made getting in and out of the slip much easier. The last time we went out I put I pretty good gash in the bow thanks to a strong headwind and an inexperienced helmsman (me). This time we had no similar incident.

We’re ready to take the fam out next.

Portal developer resources

IBM DeveloperWorks includes tutorials and other resources on a variety of technologies including Java, XML/XSL, Web Services, WebSphere, Lotus, Linux, Rational, and many others
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/

o’Reilly’s XML site
http://www.xml.com

XSLT tutorials and resources
http://www.xslt.com

Webmonkey XML topics
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/xml/?tw=xml

Site for XML developers. Includes links to other resources.
http://www.xmlhack.com

XSLT spec, tutorial
http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/

CSS
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

Java tutorial
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

Java, JSP, XML forums and FAQs
http://www.jguru.com

J2EE Community
http://www.theserverside.com

IBM WebSphere Portal Zone
http://www7b.software.ibm.com/wsdd/zones/portal/

This information is from a co-worker of mine named Patrick Dawson, reprinted here with permission…
 
Mike Kay’s “XSLT Programmer’s Reference” (ISBN: 1861005067), 2nd ed., by Wrox Press is often regarded as the definitive guide on XSLT.  I used the first edition religiously on a couple of projects.  However, this is probably not an ideal book for beginners.  It’s more of a reference than a tutorial.  I dislike the way it’s written (it can be inpenetrable in places, as many Wrox books are), but the accuracy and completeness of its content can’t be beaten.  Kay is also very active in XSLT mailing groups and is the developer of one of the fastest Java XSLT processors around.  See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861005067/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_3/002-4033180-1542469, and be sure to use the second edition instead of the first. 
 
Khun Yee Fung’s “XSLT:  Working with XML and HTML” (ISBN: 0-201-71103-6) is a nicely organized introduction to XSLT.  In 2001, I recommended this book to clients and Navigator consultants who were new to XSLT and wanted to quickly learn the 20% of XSLT that you’ll use 80% of the time.  This book delivers that within 50 or so pages.  Its big drawback, however, is that it is now somewhat out of date.
 
O’Reilly Press, which generally produces fine Java and XML books, has a couple of recent XSLT offerings that weren’t around when I last did XSLT project work.  I can’t vouch for them, but they might be worth a look.  Try the following:
 
Oddly enough, Ken Holman’s training materials for Crane Softwrights continue to be widely recommended as a great instructional source on XSLT.  In mags like the “XML Journal”, readers have voted his stuff as being great.  I’ve read his free excerpts and liked them, but I haven’t purchased any of his online publications.

Grassroots knowledge management. One critical feature of most first generation knowledge management efforts is that they were designed and implemented following the standard corporate approach of top down, centralized, resource planning and implementation…Knowledge work, on the other hand, depends on extracting maximum advantage out of the unique characteristics and experiences of each knowledge worker.[McGee’s Musings]