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Part I ✦ Curl Content Language Fundamentals
Curl comes with the SAX (Simple API for XML) parser for XML documents. This
means that Curl speaks XML as a native language, which makes Curl applets excel-
lent front ends for XML data. This makes Curl an ideal user interface for the growing
body of SOAP/Web services. See Chapter 29 for details on using SAX with Curl.
See the CurlExamples site (
www.curlexamples.com) for specific examples of work-
ing with other tools. Also, see the “Fitting into Your Infrastructure” section, later in
this chapter, for tips on applying Curl to your current situation.
Types of Curl Technology Solutions
From a technical point of view, nearly any client-side application can be improved by
using Curl. However, there are some significant usability and business considerations.
Usability
Curl’s interactive features and local response times generally make applications sig-
nificantly easier and faster to use. This improved usability can give your application
an edge against the competition. It may even permit you to charge premium pricing
(until your competitor adopts Curl). Improved usability is one of the key reasons
companies use Curl.
As with any plug-in, however, there are the issues of startup time and installation
that must be considered. In the 1.0 release, it can take 20 or more seconds, depend-
ing on your computer, to launch the Surge plug-in the first time (of course, you can
always configure the plug-in to launch on computer startup). Furthermore, each
user needs to have downloaded and installed the Surge plug-in, which takes a few
minutes, depending on your connection speed.
As Curl/Surge becomes more ubiquitous and Surge launch times decrease (the 2.0
version of the plug-in, due out in the summer of 2002, is supposed to launch 5 times
faster than the current version), these will not be issues. For now, the Surge launch
time needs to be considered as part of the application’s usability. Public sites that
expect traffic from a wide range of users would probably not want to put Curl
content on their home page, for example.
Business models
Before discussing when to use Curl, it is useful to segment the types of application
in use today. There are two basic kinds of revenue-producing methods on the Web:
transactions fees (eBay, Amazon, Dell) and subscription fees (Wall Street Journal,
Communispace).
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