Whim

JobSearch Update E-Mail Blast

Back to our story.
The economy must be expanding a bit, because a developer left CAST for a new programming job, opening up a slot they needed to fill, which is where I come in.

ASIDE:
Hmmm. Confirmation of a trend. Case of the same story reported in yesterday's newspaper (!):
Boston Globe, Jan. 19, 2004. "FOR TECH FIRMS, RECOVERY BUT NO '90S REPLAY"
'..."Here's a surprise: A programmer who worked for us just took a job at another company," said Paul Egerman, chairman and chief executive at eScription Corp., a Needham firm that makes speech recognition software for doctors. "That hasn't happened in years." ...'

Below, brief descriptions of:
- COMPANY
- POSITION
- PROJECT
- HOW THEY FOUND ME
- TECHIE BIT

And that's all the news that fits.

Thanks for your time in checking out this JobSearch Update of mine.
You can also see it online in my weblog at:
http://www.reilly2001.info/whim/archives/jobsearch/jobsearch_update_email_blast_2004-01-20.html

Best wishes for the (still somewhat) New Year.
William
william@reilly2001.info
http://reilly2001.info
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-----------------
COMPANY
http://www.cast.org
CAST "...is a not-for-profit organization that uses technology to expand opportunities for all people, especially those with disabilities."
- Education, online learning, assessment (web accessibility, text-to-speech,
screen readers, and more).
- Funding from various gov't., education, and industry sources.
- Wakefield, Massachusetts. Founded 1984.

----------------
POSITION
3 months project as an XML developer (XSLT, Schema, Apache Cocoon, Cocoon-Forms) along with some Java. (See "Techie Bit" below for details.)
- They do like to have/keep long-term contractors.
- There's potential for employee hire later.

--------------
PROJECT
- The goal is to improve the accessibility of online assessments (tests, quizzes) for learning-impaired, blind, and otherwise print-disabled students.
- To begin, the result will be implemented in Rhode Island schools this year.
- Interesting stuff.

-------------------------------------
HOW THEY FOUND ME
The hiring manager typed into Google:
"resume Massachusetts Cocoon"
and I came up twice within the first 6 hits. Good thing about having a weblog. (And about working on a still somewhat arcane (and distinctively named) technology.)

--------------------
TECHIE BIT
I don't know a lot yet (start tomorrow), but Cocoon's approach to forms handling will be central to this interface. That's been called "Woody" and now "Cocoon-Forms."
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=Woody
It differs from W3C XForms :^(, but quips and quotes from those in the know on listservs seems to indicate you can't go too far wrong tackling Cocoon's version for now, and see what happens in the world of XForms down the road...

From the world of online education, the Digital Talking Book and the QTI (Question-Test-Interoperability) DTDs are key to all this,
- ANSI/NISO Z39.86 Digital Talking Book
http://www.loc.gov/nls/niso/
- IMS QTI Question & Test Interoperability
http://www.imsproject.org/question/index.html
as well as the use of XML Schema for other "local" data aspects (as I thus far understand it).

Also, Cocoon's Actions and/or Flowscript will be central to controlling the application's screens and user interaction.
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=Flow

Finally, enough Java to properly handle 1) some custom Cocoon 'generator's, possibly, and 2) capturing and re-presenting the student's data (responses, profile, etc.), plus 3) tracking and measuring the clickstream, with some of these things going to a MySQL database.
My best guess for the moment. I'll put up news (as permitted) on my weblog, http://reilly2001.info/whim/.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thanks again for reading, and, send me an e-mail to say Hello if you like.
(Or, even better, enter a Comment here in the weblog!)
Best,
William
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Undoing Five Years of Damage (?)

It's a little unfair, and yet I find I have to write up my feelings and conclusions from a little local discovery yesterday.

We're talking about the exciting techie information world of "retrospective conversion," the two-word term of art coined by librarians a couple decades ago when they faced the daunting task of getting all that paper-based catalog information online.

Yesterday's little discovery wasn't of a situation that daunting, but it also was a situation you'd think (in glorious hindsight, of course) wasn't as inescapable as the librarian's plight. For decades (centuries?), librarians had to use paper. But what excuse was there, in this other case, for adopting proprietary software solutions in the recent (dim?) history of 1998 web application development?

The nearby (unnamed) university situation was that since 1998 (data collection more in earnest since 2001) one school had devised an online course website build tool, using ColdFusion (writing to Oracle).

By spring of 2003 someone concluded that it was best to abandon that proprietary format approach, to migrate course software to the wider university-based Java offering, and to spend some money "retrospectively converting" those five or so years of course instance data sets into a nice, neutral, TEI-Lite XML vocabulary. This remedial effort restores that data to its original state of "free" potential once more, by means of rendering to a standards-based, open source, text-based, openly processable information format. And so this modest investment in Perl mongering salvages the larger investment in corporate memory, and effectively "banks" the content, against some yet to be foreseen purpose/application.

-----
So, my feelings and conclusions?
Well, I have to say it's really kind of interesting (amusing?) (perhaps a bit of schadenfreude there...?) to find this example of the need for "retrospective conversion" as applied to such a short stint of history (fewer than 5 years!), as opposed to that enormous legacy catalog data libraries faced.

Maybe what this discovery really ought to be is a bit of a humbling message to overzealous "solutions providers" (like yours truly?) evangelizing certain approaches... On the other hand, I also think it pretty well validates my avoidance (since ca. 1999) of anything short of Java, XML, Unicode, and other real standards-based, open source, text-based solutions. No more Microsoft
VB, Lotus Notes, Macromedia Flash/ColdFusion and the like for me.

Anyway, a bit of vindication, for one (me) who's been there ("done that"), but has since been pretty well able to renounce those kinds of dev. environments.

Wm.

New Goings-On...

Current, new goings-on in the realm of resume-building, connections-furthering, knowledge-deepening.
One from California, one from Switzerland.

1. - Alma Mater (grad school) = U.C. Berkeley, School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS)
Has a campus-wide "Document Engineering" project I am now tapped into, via a meeting last week with Prof. Glushko:
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~glushko/
I will serve in a role of "Boston-based (alumni) beta tester" of their "Center in a Box" automated website development system (Cocoon + XML Schema-driven):
http://cde.berkeley.edu/initiatives/centerinabox/

(See my blog entry http://www.reilly2001.info/whim/archives/000015.html)

2. - Apache/Cocoon/Lenya open source CM software group from Zurich is currently establishing a Boston office = I am working out a consulting role with them. They've got Zurich's premier newspaper as lead client:
http://www.wyona.com/references/
I made their acquaintance at the Harvard-sponsored OSCOM conference held in May:
http://www.oscom.org/Conferences/Cambridge/Program

San Francisco, Content Management

San Francisco this week, for Content Management extravaganza:
Gilbane Conference on Content Management at Seybold San Francisco 2003 ("at-a-glance").

Logistics information below (hotel; phone numbers; etc.)

Some Shared Logistics Info:

CONTACT
Cell Phone = (617) 290-9689
wreilly@cmsreview.com
http://www.cmsreview.com/Editors/
william@reilly2001.info
http://reilly2001.info

AIR
I'll be getting in late Monday morning (6:00 A.M. out of Logan (!)), and
departing Thursday evening v. late (11:45 P.M.).

HOTEL
Staying at the Canterbury Hotel on Sutter Street
http://www.canterbury-hotel.com/
750 Sutter Street * San Francisco, CA 94109 * 415-474-6464 * Guest Fax
415-474-5856 * 800-227-4788

SCHEDULE
Tuesday evening I've an appt. with former U.C. Berkeley professor and a couple
of his students; otherwise (so far) free...
http://cde.berkeley.edu/
http://sims.berkeley.edu/
Tues. eve. event:
http://www.sdforum.org/p/calEvent.asp?CID=1151&mo=9&yr=2003

Resume

My first real draft of my resume.
Legible, if kinda oddly HTML-ized by Open Office Writer/Web. (It was worse pasting in here from the MS-Word HTML-ization).

Time for feedback (and modifications...).
Wm.
(For real thing (and current version), click to /resume )

"Is Knowing XML Worth Anything Anymore?"

XML.com: Nobody Asked Me, But... [Aug. 27, 2003]

This article rings true, as I'm busy (re-)sizing up which piece(s) of the grand world of XML are for me (these days).

I've long now said (two years, maybe?), XML is like ASCII. Saying, "we do XML" is like saying, "our product does ASCII." Yes, of course it does; nobody asks that anymore! The question is _what_ are you doing with XML? (and the legitimate replies can be myriad; hence the "grand world...")

Wm.

by John Simpson

"A few years ago, I crammed my head with everything XML-related that I could find; it all used to fit -- if not in my head, at least between the covers of a 300- or 400-page book."

"At work nobody knew anything about XML, and non-XML project priorities couldn't wait." [...so I was a leading XML generalist...!]

"It's true that there are people -- many if not all of them participants on the XML-DEV list -- who are apparently profoundly smart about nearly everything going on in the XML world; many of them grew up with and are still fond of SGML, Smalltalk, Lisp, and awk, yet are equally at home discussing Java, XML Schema, Unicode, web services, Perl, the Campaign for Real Ale, and the handling characteristics of the Segway. Face it, though: you are not one of those people" (emphasis added)

"There's just too much going on, and it's going on in too many places at once, for you to get it all."

"Select a specialty. Go deep instead of broad."

FUTURE: draft mat'l. for JobSearch

This entry pairs with the "PAST" one.
Just draft material at this point.... work-in-progress, goes without saying!
Wm.

===============================================
1. FUTURE = How to describe what I want to do next.
===============================================
Three Areas:
A. XML/XSLT/DTD/XSD technologies, content management, "single-source"
publishing
(good deal of hands-on document and content analysis, DTD/XSD development,
XSLT processes design and implementation, etc.)

B. CMS (Content Management Systems) per se
Some of the "usual suspects" of various well-known CM Systems
- Interwoven;
- Content Server;
- Vignette;
etc. on which I've had varying degrees of experience...

C. Application Frameworks, J2EE applications, data-intensive website
development
(I know some Java, but am not a Java developer. But, I can contribute in
many other ways to these kinds of projects)

=======================
A. XML, PUBLISHING, etc.
Below, I've taken a look at the work of two other highly respected
people/groups in the field (of XML/XSLT/DTD/XSD technologies, content
management, "single-source" publishing, etc.), to provide some ideas and
examples:

1). New Media Publications, Bill Trippe
2). Mulberry Technologies, B. Tommie Usdin

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1). New Media Publications, "Recent Technology Projects"
http://www.nmpub.com/recent.htm
Bill Trippe projects,
-- re-sorted in order of interest/appeal to me --

Closer to Hands-On Deliverables
# Developing document type definitions (DTDs) for two divisions of a major
educational publisher, enabling them to drive print and Web production from a
single source.
# Implementing XML editing tools and an XSLT-based Web publishing tool for a
major publisher.
# Developing RFPs and soliciting proposals for tools to convert publishers'
databases to XML and other formats.

Special case (Web Services)
# Advising a large technical publisher on implementing Web Services technology
to integrate both new and legacy publishing and business systems.

More Strategy
# Developing requirements, functional specifications, and test plans for
authoring and publishing tools for a major journal publisher
# Advising a major publisher on next-generation electronic reference products
for the Web and CD-ROM.
# Developing a needs analysis and RFP detailing requirements for Web-based
collaboration and publishing tools for a major publishing organization.
# Developing a comprehensive strategy for the State of Washington to use XML
and other emerging standards in its newly planned Digital Archive.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2). B. Tommie Usdin (Mulberry Technologies)
http://www.mulberrytech.com/people/usdin/btu-quals.html

WR note: These are very high-end, very large organizations that this person
has worked with -- I don't entirely expect or desire projects of this scope,
but they do provide examples on the more complex end of the spectrum of what
I'd like to do.

- Developed the DTD for Oxford University Press' American National Biography
(ANB)
- Developed the Pinnacles Component Information Standard (PCIS) for the
semiconductor industry, an industry-wide SGML application for the interchange
of semiconductor documentation
- American Memory Project of the Library of Congress, Ms. Usdin led the
analysis team that selected the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) as the basis
for their custom DTD
- Publisher of a major scientific encyclopedia, Ms. Usdin led the editorial
team in identification of the structure of the articles and index structures.
She then led the team that developed a set of DTDs for articles, indices, and
the full encyclopedia.
- Set of inter-related DTD modules for a government agency that produces a
variety of periodical publications, some daily, some weekly, and some
irregular

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3). William Reilly

First: Simple Problem Statement: "The Information Problem"
(then: "What I Can Add" (below))
- 1. Organizations seek to optimize the use of resources. (of course)
- 2. Information holds the potential for delivering high value to
organizations (right information/right person/right time).
- 3. But, finding (& storing/managing) information effectively requires a
good-sized investment.
- 4. Therefore, organizations find it challenging to make optimal use of
resources to best organize information for storage and use, to derive that
high potential value.

What I Can Add:
I believe I can make the most effective contribution to organization(s) facing
this "Information Problem" where:
- I can use my skills in data/information/content/document analysis,
modelling, design, transformation.
- I can draw on my experience in assembling systems for processing
(acquisition; management; publishing).
- I can play a key role in project scoping, planning, staffing, budgeting.
- I can be relied upon to ensure the team has a sound understanding of what
the client's business problem is, what the client wants from the system.
- I can assume a lead role of responsibility and accountability for project
management and final deliverables.

I believe I can also contribute to higher level strategic planning, industry
review, and product evaluation efforts, etc. But my first preference is
(currently!) more project deliverables oriented.

====================
B. CMS
In addition to perhaps the "usual suspects" of various well-known CM Systems
- Interwoven;
- Content Server;
- Vignette;
etc. on which I've had varying degrees of experience)...

====================
C. FRAMEWORKS, etc.
Some Particular Architectures, Frameworks:
...these kinds of server-side J2EE applications are of keen interest to me:
- Apache Cocoon/Lenya http://cocoon.apache.org/lenya
- Orbeon, Inc. XFO XML Framework (U.C. Berkeley project)
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=053828
- WebML (www.webml.org; www.webratio.com)
- D-Space (M.I.T., Hewlett-Packard) http://www.dspace.org/
- Struts (MVC) http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/index.html
- JSTL (JSP Standard Tag Library) http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/jstl/

PAST: draft mat'l. for JobSearch

This entry pairs with "FUTURE"...
work-in-progress (towards a resume)

===============================================
2. PAST = How to describe what I was doing.
===============================================
- Organization
Digitas, LLC
"Marketing & Technology consulting firm"
1,200 people; Boston (main), NY, London, SF, Chicago
Fortune 100 AT&T; GM; FedEx; Xerox; Delta

- Title/Role
VP/Assoc. Dir., Technology

- How Long There
5 years

- Why Laid Off
"Excess capacity relative to client demand."
Technology group reduced by 15% (7 middle managers)
[Q1, Q2 2003 $3.5MM vs. $5.0MM in 2002]

- What Technologies I Learned/Used
XML, DTD, XSLT, DocBook, XSD, CSS, XHTML, RDF, XML Topic Maps
Content Mgt.: Interwoven; Content Server; Apache Cocoon
XML Spy & Stylesheet Designer; Emacs; eWebEditPro; Eclipse (XML Buddy);
XMetal; MS-Office
Unix/Linux, Perl, Ant, CVS, bash, Windows admin (some)
Java; J2EE; Object-oriented A/D

- What "Soft Skills" I Learned/Used
Project technical lead responsibilities
Client relations (w lead client technologist)
Project scoping, planning
MS-Project
MS-Visio (architecture documents)
Content analysis: documents, websites, fragments. "Information architecture"
Cooperative collaboration with Marketing, Creative, Content Specialists,
Usability, Measurement
Successfully persuaded "Creative/Usability/Copywriters/Information
Architects" of the need for Technology contribution to defining "upstream"
work products (wireframes; sitemap; comps; content gap analysis & plan;
naming conventions; functionality requirements capture; etc.)

- What I Did/Created (more developer "hands-on")

"XML-2-HTML" WEBSITE BUILD SYSTEM
- Conceived, designed, architected, implemented, and documented (DocBook)
open source website build system: "XML-2-HTML"
(a.k.a. "Trees Into Rectangles")
Directed internal team's use and trained client.
What "It" Is:
Single-click website (re-)build system (static HTML, with some client-side
functionality).
Edit your content in simple ("presentation-free") BusinessML XML.
Achieved separation of content from presentation; all content rendered
processable (via automation) for future purposes.
Designed to support "CMS-ready" level of granularity of content types.
XML, XHTML, DTD, XSLT, CSS, Java, Ant, CVS, Tomcat/Apache, Linux/Windows,
XML Spy. Utilized Open Market/divine "Content Server" CMS in part, with
eWebEditPro (WYSIWYG control).

NOTE: This product 'XslGen' is (~sort of) ~similar/akin to my XML-2-HTML:
http://www.syntext.com/products/index.htm#XslGen
http://www.syntext.com/products/xslgen/doc/index.html
"Combining XslGen with any version control system (like CVS) and "make"
utility you get a simple site content management system - almost for free!
This is ideal solution for small- to medium-size businesses which need easy
Web site content management but doesn't want to bother with complex and
expensive enterprise content management solutions."

E-MAIL SYSTEM
- Designed and implemented prototype WYSIWYG e-mail content management and
production system for multiple campaigns, multiple clients, variety of
personalization metadata, various output formats (HTML; "AOL"; TXT)
Outputs readied for various 3rd party e-mail vendor requirements:
DoubleClick; PostFuture; etc.
XML Spy, Authentic, Stylesheet Designer, Ant, XSLT, DTD, XSD, MS-Excel

BUG REPORTING SYSTEM
- Conceived, designed, developed and rolled out Bug Reporting system ("Page
Problem Report (PPR)) for use in website development.
Lotus Notes/Domino web-based
Popular, useful
Multiple projects, clients

- What I Did/Created (more managerial/analyst)
- Technology Lead responsibility, main client technology liaison, mgt. small
teams of web developers (4-8+) on website build projects (Millennium
Pharmaceuticals; Fleet Bank (3 portals); others (AT&T; Xerox; Harcourt))

- Technology internal liaison (to Creative, Marketing etc.). Project
scoping/estimating; planning; staffing/resourcing; project mgt.; quality
assurance procedures; deliverables definition, packaging

- Technology Consultant
Multiple business unit technology & content evaluation, recommendations to
senior management (Harcourt Publishers)
Senior-level technology client liaison during website development
(Xerox.com)
Technology Assessment reports
New Business proposals, RFPs, presentations
Online Library consulting (M.L.I.S. background)
Hosting services research and recommendations

- Software Development Manager
(I.B.M. Lotus Domino app. dev.(automated sitebuild Notes CM databases);
mgt. of team of 12; bug triage)

EDUCATION

- Education, Training Background
M.L.I.S. (U.C. Berkeley, 1987)
Masters in Library & Information Studies
Harvard Extension School: XML, Java, Perl (1999 - present)
Training (CMS: Interwoven; Content Server; Java (Sun) courses: Programmer;
Architect
B.A., English (College of the Holy Cross, 1981)
===============================================

Inquiry from '87 M.L.I.S., re: Document Engineering & OXF

An e-mail I sent to UC Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS), where I earned a Master's degree in 1987.
Looking to meet with someone there while in San Francisco in a couple of weeks...
We'll see what (if anything) comes of it.
Wm.

==================================================
Inquiry from '87 M.L.I.S., re: Document Engineering & OXF
Date: Yesterday 02:16:04 pm
From: William Reilly [wreilly@alumni.sims.berkeley.edu] (reilly2001.info)
To: glushko@sims.berkeley.edu
BCC: Lorie Reilly [lorie.reilly@pearsoned.com], Bob Doyle [bobdoyle@skybuilders.com]
Reply to: wreilly@alumni.sims.berkeley.edu

Dear Professor Glushko,

I write you as a recently laid off Boston-based alumnus (M.L.I.S. 1987) who
will soon be paying a short visit to San Francisco, in the hopes that what I
propose below [re: an informal meeting] is something you might be willing to
assist in arranging.

Led by the appropriately prominent link on the SIMS homepage, I have now
looked over a good amount of the web pages on your Document Engineering
courses from the past year, and am quite intrigued - perhaps in particular by
the use of Orbeon's OXF (and the comparison with Cocoon, Struts, etc.).

My own work is closely involved in some aspects of this (XSLT pipelines
(chained by Ant); DTD/XSD; XML Spy; some Cocoon); and not so close in others
(more web publishing than web services; I can work in some Java/J2EE, but not
a real developer; have some WS/WSDL/SOAP knowledge, but not real practice).
[Note: I've pasted in my "UCB SIMS Alumni Profile" at the bottom of this
e-mail.]

I would appreciate the opportunity to meet and "compare notes" with someone
(or some couple of people) from your classes whom you think might be good
choices, and who might be willing and available, while I am in the Bay Area:
[ DATES = Monday Sept. 8 through Thursday Sept. 11 ]
[any evening, also, Monday afternoon available (prob. preferred?)]

I am in San Francisco to attend the Seybold Conference
http://www.seybold365.com/sf2003/conference/glance/
and the Gilbane Content Management (sub-)Conference
http://tinyurl.com/l8yz
[I am a (new) Contributing Writer to CMS Review:
http://www.cmsreview.com/Editors/ , and will be reporting on the conference.]

Many thanks for your time in reviewing this e-mail inquiry, and thanks in
advance if you feel there is the possibility of some kind of informal meeting
that might be arranged.

Best regards,
William Reilly, M.L.I.S. '87
william@reilly2001.info
(617) 290-9689 cell phone
Somerville, Massachusetts
====================
P.S. -- As I see you just taught a Summer Short Course, I'm guessing you will
see e-mail (not away on sabbatical, etc.), but I suppose if for some reason I
don't hear back from you before Sept. 3, I hope you will not mind if I employ
a small "broadcast" e-mail to the people I list below (some "Document
Engineering" students). (Though I'd much prefer to coordinate through you,
if possible! Thx.)

======================
Some Discussion Topic Ideas
======================
* Information Architecture vs. Programming? *
* Platform Technology Evaluation *
* Relationship (?) of Document Engineering to Content Management *
* Any Opportunity for Alumni Distance Learning/Contribution?? *
* Other?... *

--------------------
* Information Architecture vs. Programming? *
I went to SLIS (fewer computer requirements), not SIMS, and so I suppose one
essential question I would have concerns the extent to which the emphasis in
this design and implementation appear to be on information modelling and
information architecture, and there (appears to be?) a de-emphasis on the
need or call for Java coding/development, per se.

That is, the hard work to discover the COURSE and ROLE schemas, etc., that you
have prepared permits for a higher level contribution from a SIMS(/SLIS) kind
of graduate (as opposed to more strictly computer science/developer) to the
design and even implementation/deployment of such a system:
"[OXF permits] an ease that allows our students to find success with
building advanced systems in a far shorter period"..."quicker to market"
lesson, etc.
This seems to state it: http://dream.berkeley.edu/CDE/cas/website/
"...[we are] conducting model driven software development using XML Schema
as a basis. Our project demonstrates how Information Architecture, one of the
core competencies of a SIMS education, can be used to generate deployable
systems with a minimum of code customization."
And from Orbeon: http://www.orbeon.com/oxf/doc/intro-oxf
"we strongly believe that enterprise developers should not have to put up
with the intricacies of J2EE development."

On the other hand, the DE definition doesn't shy from including "distributed
computing," but it does make clear it's a multi-disciplinary undertaking.
http://cde.berkeley.edu/ "synthesis of information and systems
analysis, business process modeling, electronic publishing, and distributed
computing"

-------------
* Platform Technology Evaluation *
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/CDE/report/go-five-final-report.html#S5.4

The case for OXF looks good
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/CDE/report/go-five-final-report.html#S5.
but I'd be interested to learn more, perhaps esp. re: "Ease of Development
(how difficult to use the framework)" (see above discussion point). Also,
the open source vs. commercial discussion. Finally, any consideration of the
use of Relax NG as compared to W3C Schema XSD?

I've had some exposure to working with Cocoon and Cocoon/Lenya (more limited
re: Struts), and so read with interest the table in this report assessing it
against OXF, Struts(CX), and the models (MVC etc.).

Also, Cocoon's 2.1 is now available (not so in time for your project) - wonder
how that might make a difference (or not)?
http://cocoon.apache.org/news/
"The release of the long-awaited 2.1 version of Cocoon on August 13th marks
the transition from a publishing-oriented XML/XSLT server engine towards a
componentized XML-based web application development framework."

Additionally, I am at the moment intrigued by WebML (http://www.webratio.com),
as described in the book "Designing Data-Intensive Websites" (just purchased
it)
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1558608435/
"UML of the Web" - http://www.webratio.com/page2.do?link=page2.link

-------------------------
* Relationship (?) of Document Engineering to Content Management *
As noted above, my background is less on the side of "document" as business
process information exchange, and perhaps more traditionally in the use of
markup language for "documents" that are, as Elliotte Rusty Harold
http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/effectivexml/
puts it, "narrative" (e.g. DocBook; XHTML; content management & single-source
publishing, etc.)

And yet I presume that even in the area of "documents" as in an OXF framework,
etc., there still are needs for similar information-organizing principles as
found in "narrative" documents, especially the more granular the design in
composing narrative pages.

Interested to discuss some of those principles, information architecture
techniques, and see what is the relationship between the (comparatively
firmly established (!)) CM and the "evolving" DE. :^)

----------------------
* Any Opportunity for Alumni Distance Learning/Contribution?? *
(however informal)
Just a shot: the SIMS course offerings are always very appealing, but there's
never any continuing education that I'm aware of...
Is this Document Engineering by any chance a place such a precedent might be
carved out?...

---------------------
* Other?... *

==============
SELECTED LINKS:
==============
Orbeon OXF press release (May 19, 2003)
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=053828

Why OXF?
http://www.orbeon.com/oxf/doc/intro-oxf

Spring 2003 - Platform Technology Evaluation : Cocoon
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/CDE/report/go-five-final-report.html#S5.4

Fall 2002 Document Engineering "E-Berkeley"
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/doc-eng/projects/COURSE/documentation/babl-course-documentation.html

Preliminary Design
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Eglushko/ebitf_030307/PrelimDesign.htm

Minutes: e-Berkeley Implementation Task Force, March 7, 2003
http://ebitf.vcbf.berkeley.edu/minutes_mar07_2003.html

First Sketch (yellow legal pad shot!)
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/CDE/cas/design0/DraftPrelDesign.html

==========
PEOPLE:
==========
Master's 2003 (probably/perhaps no longer in Berkeley area?)
(Document Engineering)
Patrick Garvey
pgarvey@sims.berkeley.edu

Marc Gratacos
gratacos@sims.berkeley.edu

John Jairo Leon
jleon@sims.berkeley.edu

Calvin Smith
calvins@sims.berkeley.edu

==========
Master's 2004 (presumably in Berkeley in early Sept.!)
(some of those I found listing "Document Engineering" on coursework pages)

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~allisonb/coursework.html#Spring2003
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~bdaly/spring2003.htm
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~french/index.html
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~ljordan/assignments.htm
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~leejane/coursework.htm
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~zhanna/coursework.html
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~atan/courses/courses.html
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~amyt/coursework.html
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~awilhelm/coursework.html#spring03
...
Others?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WILLIAM REILLY PROFILE (@ UCB SIMS Alumni)
===============================================
===============================================
William Reilly profile
https://alumni.sims.berkeley.edu/search/fulldisplay.php?id=257
===============================================
Home Location
Somerville, MA
617 290 9689 cell phone
william@reilly2001.info

Personal Bio
In "Job Search" at the moment (Aug. 2003)!

I will be attending the San Francisco Seybold Conference (Sept. 8-11, 2003),
in particular the Gilbane Content Management sub-conference.

* Looking for work in arena of XML, DTD, XSD, XSLT, CSS, Apache Jakarta
Cocoon, Java/J2EE, etc.

o Note: The SIMS project using Oberon XML Framework (OXF) looks
_quite_ interesting:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=053828.
I hope to be in contact with Prof. Glushko and possibly some of the students
involved...

* Till recently was V.P./Assoc. Dir., Technology, at Digitas, a marketing
& technology consulting firm in Boston. Example Digitas technology work, for
Fleet Bank: http://www.digitas.com/results/fleetboston_cs.asp

* Authored DocBook documentation on "XML-2-HTML" website build &
maintenance system, also known as "Trees Into Rectangles," as used at Digitas
on Fleet and Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) websites.
http://reilly2001.info/xml-2-html/ch01s02.html#table_raw-tree

* Recently joined CMS Review as a Contributing Writer.
http://www.cmsreview.com/Editors/
==================================================
==================================================

New Notebook PC (dual-boot!)

At PCsForEveryone I today bought a new notebook PC: the never-before-heard-of maker "Spartan" (sounds a bit ominous). Features the new Centrino chip stuff that makes it all run longer (I'm sure I paid more, to run longer...).
Here's the spec sheet (.PDF).
=========================
Spartan SAC1402 Notebook (Centrino)
14.1”XGA Screen
24x CD ROM
56K V.90 / 10/100 LAN
Wireless LAN Intel 2100
40GB Hard-drive
512 MB RAM
Lithium Battery
Windows XP Professional
(dual-boot with Linux Red Hat 9)
AC Adapter & Carrying case
=========================

Can't wait to have fun sinking time into getting this guy up and running... ;^)
Wm.

Web Services Conference, Boston

A few quick notes on this conference I attended today and yesterday:
XML-Web Services One Conference + Expo, Boston

Zero to sixty in two quick days on web services lingo and all the rest of it.
[ Actually, I shouldn't say "zero." I'd done WSDL and had an intro to Web Services in May 2002 in my Harvard Extension School course: "e-Business Applications with XML." ]
Highly useful sessions for me to attend. Expo floor not quite as useful, but still worthwhile. And, free lunch, if you can believe in such a thing.

Thursday:

IBM Web Services Technical Briefing Day Agenda

• Web Services Connections - Doug Tidwell (O'Reilly author)


• Web Services Development Productivity - WebSphere Studio App Developer

Keynote: "Web Services Today: A Perspective" - David Chappell, Principal, Chappell & Associates

I have his (unread, so far) "Understanding .NET" book.

Building and Consuming Java Web Services with Apache Axis: A Tutorial in Three Acts - Glenn Daniels, Macromedia, Apache Axis, JAX-RPC

Friday:
XSLT Gets a Facelift: A Look at XSLT 2.0 in the Enterprise - Jeff Fenton, Datapower

Web Services and Existing Databases - Doug Barry (book author)

Here's a bit of linking HTML provided by the author himself (!):

• Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures: This site will help you get started with Web services and service-oriented architectures. It features free articles, product listings, and services that can be used to develop a service-oriented architecture.

One Path...

Here's one path I was just led down:

1. In my "IN" box, received a weekly newsletter e-mail
XMLReport@101communications-news.com

2. It contains a sponsors link (which I usually ignore) to:
Technical Briefings from IBM and Microsoft in Boston
http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=2377

3. This is a re-direct to a conference I was unaware of, right in my own Boston backyard, and going on Right Now (!) (Aug. 12-15)
http://www.xmlconference.com/boston/

4. One session I found of interest is
XSLT Gets a Facelift: A Look at XSLT 2.0 in the Enterprise
http://www.xmlconference.com/boston/sessions2.asp?section_id=879

5. Which is taught by Jeff Kenton, who works for DataPower
http://www.datapower.com/newsroom/press_kit/faq.html

6. Which I learn is also in my backyard (Alewife, Cambridge)
http://www.datapower.com/about/contact_us.html
==================

Special note: I needed to telephone in (no further online registration) to see if I could attend this single XSLT 2.0 session. Didn't know if there was a price for it; didn't look like it from the brochure/PDF etc. Nice person on the telephone helped me out a bit, and it sounds like I can attend this session just on my free "Pavilion Pass." That's a nice break! (if it really works out that way! it doesn't appear to be among the freebies:
http://www.xmlconference.com/boston/free.asp
http://www.xmlconference.com/boston/special.asp
but, we'll see)

Here's also the I.B.M. day-long session (free):
IBM Web Services Technical Briefing Day Agenda
http://www.xmlconference.com/boston/classroom1.asp

I hope to get to both; we'll see!

Some Initial Remarks on JobSearch blogging

I'm unsure what to do. Hence the plunge.

I was laid off (July 23), and so am "in JobSearch." (I've decided though I don't like the term (too Newspeak-y), I'm (so far) adopting it (and this camel-cased orthography: 'JobSearch') for ease of sure communication with all I encounter.)

What I'm unsure about, vis-a-vis blogging (another term I"m a bit dicey with), is how public to make the logging of my goings-on while in JobSearch. Hmmm.

And so in addition to this blog "Whim," I have another, password-protected blog, "Mine," cleverly (and literarily) sub-titled "Me, My, Mine, or, Quarry for Middlemarch."

I'll begin with a policy along the lines of "innocent till proven guilty," (that is, put it in the public "Whim" till I realize it ought to be over in the protected Mine), and then use hyperlinks across the two blogs as seems fit (despite that visitors can't follow them down the Mine (Alice in Wonderland-like!).

We shall see how it goes--
Wm.
(pronounced, "Whim")