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Programmatic authoring

Using programmatic authoring the document source is a program written in a programming language. The document is classified as a generated document. Executing the program causes a transformation of the document source program to another format, typically HTML.

  • Expected advantages of programmatic authoring

    • We can immediately use all the 'programming tricks' in the WWW authoring area

      • Authoring of complex materials parallels creation of non-trivial programs

    • We do not need to bring in special purpose tools to help manage the authoring process.

    • We can avoid using special purpose languages and processors for a variety of purposes

      • Such languages are often poorly designed in comparison to well-proven programming languages

    • The distance between a server side program (CGI program) and a static WWW document becomes smaller

      • Both can be written in the same language

Using programmatic authoring the power of a programming language is available everywhere in the document, and at any time in the authoring process