>Right right. Sorry to confuse, I understand _how_ it can be done. I�m
>just having a hard time believing you database speeds will be much
>faster if at all.
>
>A major issue I have with this type of solution is that your view is
>buried now in stored procedures. The application will be locked into
>using HTML for display. Let alone this XML solution wouldn�t work at all
>for a Flash front end. How many designers do you know who will work
>within stored procedures?
I agree with what you're saying here. There is a time and a place for using this method. Add to that the fact not the bar has been rasied for making changes. I could see this method being very diffcult to maintain from a programming point of view since so much of the application is now in stored proceedures-- especally if designers only want to work in straight HTML ... On the other hand you could create a web service out of the recordset and have it avaialble to flash or .net clients. That way you would really have quite a bit of flexability!
>
>Using XML this way is not for every application -- but when you have an
>application with a lot of similar inserts and selects this is a viable
>option in the toolkit.
>
>Where are you seeing these similar inserts and selects? If a standard
>quiz has a pool of say 50 questions. Only 25 are display in random
>order. Multiple choice questions have their answers displayed in random
>order. A student takes this test, but you are only saving the 25 answers
>they selected. It would be very rare for one users database result and
>insert to match up with anothers.
Let's say that you have 20 people an hour take the exam and they can finish the quiz at their leisure-- then rare becomes reality at this point. When I meant similar, I meant a similar insert statement or select statement with similar fields .. ie something that one can account for and program for.
>
>Why not just create a quiz object, populate it with a stored procedure
>call and throw it into application scope? You hit the DB only once to
>create the initial object, and then once each time you save the results.
>Then you are open to trow a façade in between the object and the display
>to port to Flash, HTML or whatever.
You could also create a view (with an index using @@ Idenity) containing the questions and answers together. I'll agree that doing it the way has its advanatages and disadvantages-- one advantage is by making the application score variable a query object you could query the variable structure just like any query. One would still need to store and parse and query variable.
One needs to weigh both ideas and see what works for the given situation. As I pointed out, knowing that one can pull XML directly out of SQL Server is good for the toolbox and is a viable option with distinct advanatages adn disadvantages.
>
>How is CF still not parsing XML? It would have to parse the XML to get
>to the HTML within.
Remember, that one is just inserting the raw XML (really HTML in this case)... therefore little to no parsing is needed... as you pointed out, now the processing and programming has been moved into stored proceedures/ and user defined functions.... upping the programming bar sometimes has its own consequences as well.
>
>Adam Wayne Lehman
>Web Systems Developer
>Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
>Distance Education Division
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jeremy Brodie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 1:04 PM
>To: CF-Talk
>Subject: Re:Quiz builder?
>
>Adam,
>
>One of things you can do within SQL server 2000 is build the HTML for
>the checkbox, radio buttons and select options directly in the database
>without CF having to parse the information. ( I think this is possible
>within Oracle 9i as well-- the commands and techniques are different)
>
>To see why this could be an easier process let's take a look at the
>alternatives.
>
>Requirements:
>1) You need to answser 20 questions, they of any form type
>2) Users need to save the information for later... i.e they can take the
>quiz and go back an hour later
>3) Your administrative section needs to provide a interface allowing
>quiz questions to be added, modified and deleted. You also need to weigh
>the questions as well for scoring purposes.
>4) You need to provide quiz administrators with reporting on the users
>results
>
>Quiz creation
>a) Non XML way: Based upon a selection you will need to querry the
>database for questions and answers. Pulling the answers from a single
>query (and mulitple joins) you'll check if there are more than one
>record in the database query. If there its a checkbox, radio list or
>select box, then you will need to supress the question and provide the
>user with the answer.
>
>b) Using XML, on the database side, configure the XML query so you are
>pulling direct HTML (there is no processing on the CF side, it just
>pulls whatever provided by the database). If there is no answers then in
>the stored proceedure write out the Textbox or input tags directly. For
>radio buttons, check boxes and select lists, created a nested XML
>structure containing the questions and the answers outputting the
>information as straight HTML (so the XML would be your option or input
>tags).
>
>Quiz display
>For displaying answers for each question the NON-XML method would
>involve running two querries-- one against a reporting database and the
>other against the question list. CF would then compare the results to
>see if we need to merge the two items. Even if we were doing one
>question at a time and saving the question number, as in a pool of
>question, this would still involve querrying the entire database every
>time (or be a drain on resources of a lot of people were using Q of Q
>functionality to do the same).
>
>Using the XML way (in SQL server 2000), create a table object containing
>the questions and the correct answer. This way the output can contain
>the answer or checked box as needed. By using database functions to
>randomize and pool the functions, one can reduce the laod on the
>database server while also easing the parsing by using XML.
>
>Inserting answers into the reporting database
>Inserts work in the same way-- by placing the data into a table datatype
>one can quickly move information into the database (obv.. you'll place
>the the document into the proper format by turing the results into XML),
>into the right fields 20 questions at a time-- this way the database
>does not have to process 20 insert questions at a time -- less chance of
>a deadlock if you have quite a number of customers on the site.
>
>You'll note that I could of saved the user's information as a session
>variable and choose not to do it this way. Even using a structure to
>determine the question answer pair -- a customer taking the quiz could
>not take the quiz later on without taking the whole quiz again!
>
>Take a look at the presentation link (the example presented was your
>employee skills application at Hopkins)-- by moving much of the
>processing to the database and not parcing the XML (instead one created
>the XML using direct HTML)one can create quizes with question pools and
>a random display-- instead of CF functions, this is now handled by
>database functions.
>
>Using XML this way is not for every application -- but when you have an
>application with a lot of similar inserts and selects this is a viable
>option in the toolkit.
>
>Jeremy
>
>>I don't see how XML would really help. You're still having to run
>>complicated queries to generate the XML, then asking CF to parse. In
>>most quiz applications a random display and question pool is common so
>>caching the xml wouldn't be beneficial either.
>>
>>What am I missing here?
>>
>>Adam Wayne Lehman
>>Web Systems Developer
>>Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
>>Distance Education Division
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Jeremy Brodie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 12:56 PM
>>To: CF-Talk
>>Subject: Re:Quiz builder?
>>
>>Joe,
>>
>>If you're looking to build one from sratch you might want to take a
>look
>>at using XML to send and retieve information from the database.
>>Christopher Lomvardias has a good presentation on this subject at
>>http://www.cfug-md.org/talks/mdcfug_2003December.ppt. Its a bit heavy
>on
>>the database site, however, doing it this way will save a lot of time
>>building the application.
>>
>>He does a great job explaining how this would work for a situation such
>>as yours. (and doing it this way will save a tremendous amount of
>code--
>>doing it without XML would involve complicated querries and quite a bit
>>of CF logic to display the page properly!)
>>
>>Bascially, the hard part of creating any quiz is generating the
>>checkboxes, radio button and the select lists -- and generating XML is
>a
>>clean fast way of moving this information in and out of the database,
>>espcally if you have 20-30 questions in your quiz. On the creation
>side,
>>you might want to look at using a bit of _javascript_ to add the elements
>>you'll need to add checkboxes, select lists and radio buttons.
>>
>>Jeremy Brodie
>>Intelix
>>an Edgewater Technology Solutions Company
>>
>>web: http://www.edgewater.com
>>phone:(703) 815-2500
>>nasdaq symbol: EDGE
>>
>>
>>>I've been looking for a nice quiz/test builder for an online course
>>system
>>>i'm working on and can't seem to find one, at least not one for
>>ColdFusion.
>>>Anyone come across anything like this? I'd rather buy some open code
>>than
>>>write it myself, too many other things to work on right now. Most of
>>what i
>>>see out there are poll generators though, nothing for quizzes or
>tests.
>>>
>>>If you know where i can find it, or would like to sell what you've
>>made,
>>>please contact me. Thanks!!! ... .joe
>> _____
>>
>>
> _____
>
>
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