XForms, REST, XQuery...and skimming

Skimming’ is about being able to install various pieces of server-side software and then not have to touch them again. No configuration…no writing of server-side scripts…just store data and retrieve it. It may sound a little odd, but a good example of a component that can do this is a WebDAV server; here you simply install the software and then start saving documents, editing and updating them, searching, and so on.

There is no reason why you couldn’t build an entire client-side application that manipulates documents and stores and retrieves them, without having to do any more to the server than the initial installation of the WebDAV software.

The XML database eXist can be much the same as WebDAV in that you can install it and then immediately start punching XML documents; unlike relational databases you don’t need to know in advance what you want to store so there no need to create tables first, define schemas, etc.

But the skimming architecture goes further; by using a standard interface to our data-in this case XQuery-we don’t even need to write server-side scripts, applications or servlets to manage the data. Instead we just use queries from our ‘rich client’. The resulting application is very loosely-coupled, and can run on just about any server-side architecture; client-side forms can be deployed by any HTTP server because there is no scripting involved in their creation, and the data can be delivered by any XML database that supports XQuery.

Application development and deployment can therefore become very fast.