From: Christo <Christopher.Jeffries@...>
Date: 2006-11-08T08:50:06+09:00
Subject: ruby, rexml, xml, xslt...?

Hello,
Any suggestions as to practical ways ahead for this situation:

1. I have little programming experience
2.a. I have begun teaching and have information that structures itself
around the lesson plans for a term (semester)
2.b. This information needs to get presented with a different focus on
it for different parts of the job (individual tutorials, college
documentation, the lesson itself, scheme of work for the term...etc.)
3. I have about two months during which I can put in some time into
this thing, after that my workload will (hopefully) go up and time
available for computer stuff be severely reduced.

To save time for myself, it seems like I should be able to create
structures to save the information to, create nice ways of getting the
information into these structures, and then manipulate the ways that
the information gets displayed according to the need. Sometimes I need
hard copy, other times not.

Somebody said 'Ruby's a nice language to learn', so I looked into it a
bit and in my own fashion can do basic things. But I've read bits about
XML and it sounds like what I want to do fits with what XML is designed
for. Except that it's not just XML but XSLT and perhaps even X-path and
other stuff too that needs to get learnt.

So, here's the question:
Should I press on with learning Ruby to create a solution or does the
XML route fit the bill better?

Thoughts and insights please

Cheers