Online business Toolkit

IBM compounds its XML toolset

Tags:
XForms,
Voicexml,
Eclipse,
XML Schema

Jonathan Bennett Builder UK

Published: 09 May 2005 17:30 BST

IBM is hoping to push forward adoption of Web technologies like XML, SVG and XForms with an update of its Emerging Technologies Toolkit. The toolkit, based on the open source Eclipse IDE, has been enhanced with a compound document editor, an XML Forms generator and a set of XML tools for Java.

The toolkit is being made available through IBM’s AlphaWorks programme, which often produces leading-edge tools, mostly as a result of research carried out in IBM’s labs. Anthony Kesterton, a Technical Consultant in the Rational division of IBM Software, told ZDNet UK sister site Builder UK the company is releasing the toolkit with the aim of spurring on use of XML-related technologies in business applications. "We see things like XML being very important to service-oriented architectures in general. The technology goes out to the developers so they can start building real business systems sooner rather than later."

The compound document editor allows you to create XML documents using a mixture of standards. Some of the languages supported in the editor are XHTML, XForms, XML-Events, SMIL, SVG, VoiceXML, XUL and MathML. While there are editors capable of handling each of these technologies individually, a system that can work with documents formed of several mark-up languages is hard to come by. While use of compound documents is still considered leading-edge technology by many, Kesterton insists that people are ready to use such documents. "I see them being used immediately. These kinds of toolkits get put out because of demand by our customer base. People developing real business applications are looking for this consolidation of XML and other front-end technologies to render them", he commented.

The XML Forms generator can create forms in XForms format, and tie them into JSP-based back-end systems. Although XForms is quite a mature standard in Internet terms, it isn't very well supported in browsers at present. IBM believes that once developers start using the technology in their applications, the browser developers will follow suit quickly. When asked if poor support was an issue, Kesterton said: "Potentially, although you could say that about many of the plug-ins that exist today. These are things which, if there's the demand for it, the front ends will supply it."

The third new part of the toolkit provides support for XML, XML Schema and XPath in Java, so that individual parts of compound documents can be extracted and dealt with individually.

While SOAs are normally considered to be the domain of large organisations with massive systems and even larger budgets, Kesterton thinks that smaller companies can get in on the act by using open source software like Eclipse and the toolkit. "These technologies are freely available, so your cost of entry is very low," he said. "Then it's a case of getting help to see which parts of your business are applicable to this kind of technology. Smaller organisations are going to be encouraged by larger organisations they deal with to do this stuff. If you have two people you want to buy from, and one can support the kind of infrastructure that's possible with these toolkits, and that fits in with your business plan, that's a way in."

The toolkit requires Eclipse 3.0, and is available for download from IBM's AlphaWorks site.