Using database software to create HTML documents

[The Big Glee Bopper]

On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, asmith wrote:

>      I was wondering if anyone has experimented with using a database 
>      software program (Dbase, Access, Fox Pro ... etc..) to create a HTML 
>      coded document?  
>      
>      It seems like it would be useful when you're creating a page with lots 
>      of repetition and similar data (for example, a list of web sites 
>      followed by short descriptions).     

Not only pretty easy but solves Steve's problem of managing lots of web 
pages. What you really want to do is realize that you are not really 
interested in managing the _page_ so much as the the data element within 
the web page such as the the url and the associated description, and the 
meta description which holds together an entire page. The data is in a 
data base and the data base is manipulated by a simple perl/visual 
basic/C++ program which access the data elements which are indexed in 
some fashion and the html is _spit_ back on the screen to create the 
_particular_ webbed info you want. 

Probably the easiest way is to use a Mac running webstar and your info 
stuck in FileMaker Pro. FileMaker is a flat file today but will be 
relational after December. You can also use sybase and syperl or whatever 
on a unix box. Need to rethink what you are doing and why are doing it. 

Every time you create a single html page you are creating a potential 
nightmare for the future.

Database, relational, entity-relationships, object-oriented, etc.

--Thom