Low-Cost, Flat-File XML for the Masses  

When you hear about XML publishing, you mostly hear about databases, workflow tools, and content management systems. These are typically costly systems aimed towards the information management needs of larger enterprises, where the sheer volume of information pumped through these systems provides a fairly rapid return on investment. This fosters the perception that you need one of these complex, expensive, enterprise solutions to use take advantage of the modularity and flexibility of authoring in XML. That is simply not true. You can realize the benefits of publishing from modularized XML, without the expense of an enterprise publishing system, by implementing the authoring environment on top of nothing more than your operating system's file system. Although this environment is not adequate for enterprise publishing needs, it is more than adequate for the needs small writing teams, businesses with a limited number of related products, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and even home users. The AIC documentation group at Cisco Systems has implemented such an authoring environment. We have been able to reuse and re-purpose modular, XML-based information without implementing a database back end. By examining how the AIC team implemented XML in a flat-file environment, you will see: * the decisions you need to make before implementing a flat-file XML system * the trade-offs, drawbacks, and pitfalls of implementing a flat-file environment (as compared to a database publishing environment) * the benefits of XML that are still available, even without the database * a migration path to a more traditional publishing environment

Willebeek-LeMair, Jason. IDEAlliance (2001). Presentations>Publishing>XML>Writing