

	---------------------------------------------
		This is README file for RayApp,
	a framework for data-centric Web applications
	---------------------------------------------

RayApp changes the way you write Web applications. Instead of writing
Perl code that prints HTML, or embedding the code inside of HTML
markup, the Perl applications only process and return Perl data.
No markup handling is done in the code of individual application,
inside of the business logic. The applications code just returns Perl
hash.

To get the (X)HTML which is the traditional goal of Web applications,
the Perl data is then serialized to XML, and postprocessed by XSLT to
the desired output format, which may be HTML, XHTML, WML or anything
else. In order to provide all parties involved (application programmers,
Web designers, ...) with a common specification of the data layer, data
structure description (DSD) file is a mandatory part of the applications.
The data returned by the Perl code is fitted into the placeholders in
the DSD XML document, creating the output XML stream.

This way, application programmer knows what data is expected from their
applications, and Web designer knows what XMLs the prostprocessing
stage will be dealing with. In addition, application code can be tested
separately from the presentation part, and tests for both application
and presentation part can be written independently, in parallel.

Of course, the necessary data passed from the application to the
presentation can change in the course of time. Both application
programmer and Web designer can use the old and new DSD and regression
tests to easily migrate to the new structure. The system will never
produce unexpected data output, since the data output is based on DSD
which is known in advance.

Installation:

Download the RayApp-x.xxx.tar.gz file, extract it (tar xvzf), change
to the RayApp-x.xxx directory, and do

	perl Makefile.PL && make && make test && make install

Documentation:

After installation, man RayApp or perldoc RayApp should give you the
documentation for this software.

Author:

Copyright (c) Jan Pazdziora 2001--2004, adelton@fi.muni.cz

