“The system used for document and translation
management in the LinuxFocus project consists of several ASCII
files, including resdb.txt, issuedb.txt and maindb.txt. These files
have a fixed format, and they’re used to generate web pages.
However, they are difficult to extend, and the separated nature of
the data makes it hard to manage all the information available for
an article.LinuxFocus did not automatically generate much web content when
I started the new database. As an editor on the Dutch team, I was
eager to have the index.html files on the web site dynamically
generated. Editing several HTML files each time a new article was
translated took a lot of effort and caused many broken links.
Therefore, I wanted a new system to which I could add information
easily, and from which I could easily generate index pages for the
web site. I started working on it sometime in the summer of
2000.The choice for XML was a bit arbitrary. Suggestions had been
made to use a relational database, but I was experienced in XML and
preferred a system of text based files. It soon turned out that a
new numbering scheme would be useful, because the database could
then use one type of ID instead of the two or three schemes then in
use. Guido Socher did all the renumbering, which was quite an
effort (my thanks!).”