Last night we had several participants in the OTUG Java SIG meeting. A couple of new people copied the material from the Tutorial CD.

There was a discussion of the use of XML data and XSLT transformations to provide flexibility in designing web-based presentations. The Apache Cocoon framework was mentioned. Use of custom JSP tag libraries was also considered, both as a means of applying XSLT to XML data streams, and for implementing more direct access to persistant data. The Apache Xerces XML parser and Xalan XSLT processor were recommended, as was the WROX book "XSLT" by Michael Kay.

The Java Wiki project, now named "OahuWiki", was also discussed. A SourceForge project has been created to support ongoing development and collaboration. An initial version of the source code, documentation, etc. will be checked in to the SourceForge CVS repository in the next week or so, when the implementation core is stable. Several extension/customization interfaces were described and illustrated with examples from the current source. Some individuals proposed interesting extensions, including use of the Apache Xindice XML database for page persistance and creation of a Swing-based WYSIWYG GUI interface that provides access to the wiki without requiring a webserver/servlet-engine. Use of test-first development techniques was also illustrated, with over 30 JUnit tests already built for the wiki.

As always, we welcome anyone with an interest in the J2EE tutorial, OahuWiki, or any other Java development topic to join us at the November meeting.