Develop a small outpatient management system using XForms and Ruby on Rails, part 1th

Installation configuration IBM DB2 9 PureXML

This series of articles describes how to use XForms, IBM DB2 PureXML, and Ruby to simplify the development of WEB applications, divided into four parts, this is the first part. This series of articles will develop a fictional application to manage outpatient information for a small hospital. You'll see the power of each technology, and you'll see how to combine it. The first part will explain how XForms, DB2 PureXML, and Ruby on Rails can help you build XML-focused WEB applications faster.

Brief introduction

The technological world is constantly changing. New technologies are emerging, and the original technology is evolving. These forces have created new paradigms and best practices. Sometimes new technology is like shiny paint on a redesigned wheel, but sometimes it brings tangible benefits. This is the first installment of this series of articles that examines three new technologies that have many similarities. These technologies are interesting from a purely technical standpoint and are aimed at simplifying certain difficult tasks. As we'll see, XForms is a technology for creating rich, interactive Web applications. Also examines the powerful Ibm®db2®purexml features used to manage XML documents. Finally, we'll use the Ruby on Rails WEB application framework to combine the two to create a WEB application that simplifies the entry of outpatient patient information. Please note that this series of articles does not involve preventing patients from viewing restricted directories, and by requiring a login to protect doctors and nurses forms and specific areas, and so on, for security issues that are considered in the product environment.

Prerequisite conditions

This article assumes that readers have a certain understanding of XML and WEB applications. The three core technologies for XForms, DB2 PureXML, and Ruby on Rails are, of course, the best, but not necessarily the case. This article is written using the Mozilla XForms plug-in version 0.8.0.3. The plugin provides XForms run-time support in any Mozilla browser such as Firefox. Another very useful Mozilla plugin is the XForms Buddy. It provides an XForms debugger. This article is using the 0.5.6 version. You also need to use IBM's DB2 database server. This paper adopts DB2 express-c 9.5. Support for Windows®, Linux™, and UNIX® systems. Ruby on Rails is also required. This article uses the Ruby 1.8.6 with Rails 1.2.5.

An outpatient XForms

This application, which manages the patient's information, needs to be entered into the patient's data, otherwise the data can only be collected by the office staff. We need to create a Web application so that any computer that can run a Web browser can be a patient's data entry point. Now you need to make the first technical decision, and the application's user interface will use XForms.

Adopt a new technology just to get on the bandwagon or add a little show of capital to your resume? Not at all. XForms works well for this situation. It can define data with a simple XML model, and define views using standard HTML form elements. XForms provides a declarative mapping between these elements. This means that you do not need to write any client or server-side code to receive the submitted data and then insert the XML structure. XForms completes these tasks for you. And is performed asynchronously: changes in the HTML form are bound to the XML model and then sent to the server for synchronization. You enjoy the benefits of Ajax and do not have to write any JavaScript code.

Keep in mind, however, that not all browsers support XForms at this time. It will be so, but not yet. Therefore, you will also need to install a plugin to support it. This can cause problems if your application has a large number of users. But that's enough for the kind of proprietary applications we've developed. The computers used to access the application are limited, so you can assume that the appropriate browsers and Plug-ins are installed.

Whenever you use xml,xforms is a powerful technique. This is a client-side technology, so it is also needed in any dynamic application to support it. A database that requires persistent data on the back end. If the front-end uses XML to represent data, wouldn't it be better if the backend is also using XML? DB2 just satisfies this requirement.