Building a web site using XML and XSL allows for a separation between content and presentation. However, this separation is not enforced by either XML or XSL standards. For instance, when examples provided with the Cocoon2 installation (an XML/XSL publishing platform) are viewed, one can find many XSL stylesheets that contain portions of content. Ideally, for easy independent development, maintenance and expandability, a website's content, layout and styling should be strictly separated. This is why the Nun.Me.Shu architecture was developed.

The Nun.Me.Shu architecture promotes a strict separation between content (XML), transformation and layout (XSL), and styling (CSS). It consists of a general web page DTD with corresponding XSL stylesheet, a basic CSS stylesheet, some DHTML javascript functions, a few button images, and some sample XML pages. It is a framework that defines the basic structure of a web site, and shows how the beforementioned separation between content, layout and styling can be accomplished. The framework is in itself a complete web site, so you can develop the outline of your own site (placeholder content pages and fully functional navigation structure) in just a few hours. The stylesheet contains pre-defined templates for different appearances of paragraphs, graphics, links, lists and forms. It even has pre-defined templates for access of Amazon's XML/HTTP product store front web service, and MoreOver's XML/HTTP news feed web service.

With regard to the layout, a web page is divided in individual independent components: header, site navigation, main content, highlights (advertising) and footer. The display of those components can easily be switched on and off with control parameters. This enables for instance for the implementation of "printer-friendly" versions of each page, just by changing one parameter. (A "printer-friendly" version of a page is a presentation of the content that only displays a header, main content and footer. Thus without the display of non-relevant site navigation and highlights -advertising column-.)

The Nun.Me.Shu architecture relies on the existence of a deployment platform with an XSLT engine to transform the XML pages into HTML. This transformation can be done real-time or in a pre-generation batch process.

On this web site you can find the following sections:

• XML/XSL/CSS - Architecture overview
  An overview of the Nun.Me.Shu XML/XSL/CSS architecture. It contains XML/XSL concepts, detailed information about the implementation of Amazon.com's XML/HTTP web service, and an overview of the installation and configuration of the development environment with Tomcat and Cocoon2. Several pages contain code samples.
• Featured Sites
  Links to two sites that were developed with the Nun.Me.Shu framework. One of them is a sample site which showcases the different elements of the Nun.Me.Shu framework. This sample site can be used as the starting point for creating a new web site.
• Web Services - XML/HTTP implementations
  A few pages that implement the web services that are supported by the Nun.Me.Shu framework: a store page, using Amazon.com's XML/HTTP web service; a news page, using MoreOver.com's XML/HTTP web service; and a driving-directions page, submitting information to a Yahoo.com page.
• Consulting - XML/XSL consulting
  A section with my resume and information about my availability as a consultant.