RE: database reading through voiceXML

I don't want to belabor this, since opinions are abundant, however, this is
wrong on so many levels:

1.	A trusted environment assumes the gateway and application code are
on the same side of the firewall. This means having the telephony hardware
on site. Hefty $$$ for everyone but the Telcos - if you wish to be truly
scalable. A T-1 line provides 23 simultaneous connections, not many in the
scheme of things. A site of any scale will need to support many T-1 lines,
etc. So, I don't see a trusted environment working for any but the few. Even
given that a company wishes to outlay the capital, you are then implementing
an inflexible application which is entirely non-portable.
2.	Again you'd be tied to the vendors implementation of the <object>
element. Currently, I'm only aware of Nuance's implementation of this tag.
And at last glance (this could have changed by now) it was entirely
proprietary (the resulting VXML file wasn't even well formed). You wouldn't
be able to utilize the VoiceXML code anywhere else. (see #1 about
non-portability)
3.	My experience with the round trip times for <submit> with DB access
in comparison to object creation and invocation with the <object> tag are a
wash. The serverside code if implemented correctly, is cached. The client,
of course, would have no options on how the interpreter handles <object>.
4.	I don't see <object> being overly used since <submit> is more in
line with other distributed internet programming paradigms. It also makes
the code reusable. The server side code is free to handle requests of this
nature in a device specific way - should the site want to support more than
voice (which is the point with current business models). It decides the
device type and tailors the content to fit. Write once sort of thing.

At any rate, as I said opinions abound.
 
Have a great day.
Lionel
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Liang Shen [mailto:liang@voicegenie.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 7:32 AM
To: LAVALLEE,LIONEL (HP-PaloAlto,ex1); 'Liang Shen'; Nitin_Khungar; Shridhar
Damle; www-voice@w3.org
Subject: RE: database reading through voiceXML


Lionel,

I agree with your point. But my point is that a return trip to servlet/JSP
via <submit>/<goto> is not the only
option. Within a trusted deployment environment, <script>/<object> can be
used for that purpose if required.

Cheers,

Liang

At 10:22 AM 10/31/2001, LAVALLEE,LIONEL (HP-PaloAlto,ex1) wrote:


This is very misleading. You need to remember that these elements are
dependent on how they are implemented in the interpreter. Utilizing the
<object> tag still means that there would be a necessity to create the class
which would access the database. You're also forgetting that in most cases
this is going to be a distributed system with the vxml pages being fetched
by the gateway on the OTHER side of a firewall. I seriously doubt your
approach would work in the real world. Better to utilize <submit> with a
servlet or JSP on the application server side. 
 
There are no shortcuts to this. As mentioned earlier, exceptions, rollbacks,
etc. need to be properly handled. This can only be done as server side code.
 
Lionel
-----Original Message-----
From: Liang Shen [ mailto:liang@voicegenie.com <mailto:liang@voicegenie.com>
]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 7:02 AM
To: Nitin_Khungar; Shridhar Damle; www-voice@w3.org
Subject: RE: database reading through voiceXML

Not necessary, Nitin and Shridhar, you can use either <script> or <object>
for database access.

Cheers,

Liang

At 08:26 AM 10/31/2001, Nitin_Khungar wrote:


Hi Shridhar,
 
According to my knowledge there are no tags in VXML for database acess.
Customized tags are not possible as VXML  as such is a XML schema.
For database access you will have to call asp or jsp pages and dynamically
create vxml pages.
 
Thanks and Regards.
Nitin Khungar
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: Shridhar Damle [ mailto:shridhar@cgclogic.com
<mailto:shridhar@cgclogic.com> ]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 6:33 PM
To: www-voice@w3.org
Subject: database reading through voiceXML 

Hi, 

Are there any tags in voiceXML that can make program read data from database
by generating the queries dynamically? 

If yes then what are those tags? 

If no then is it possible to have customized tags (say "dbread") in
voiceXML? viz. 

<prompt> 

Your account balance is <dbread table='account' field='balance'/> 

</prompt> 

Is this feasible? OR we have to always submit to next asp or jsp or whatever
and generate the vxml with account balance information dynamically? 

If it is feasible then... 

do the vxml interpreters available today can support customizable tags? Like
if a custom tag is found the interpreter should hand over the control to the
application to take necessary actions. 

Regards, 

Shridhar



-------------------------------------------------------------- 

CG-CORE EL LOGIC SYSTEMS LTD, PUNE, INDIA 

Cheers,

Liang Shen
VoiceGenie Technologies Inc.
http://www.voicegenie.com <http://www.voicegenie.com/>  

Cheers,

Liang Shen
VoiceGenie Technologies Inc.
http://www.voicegenie.com <http://www.voicegenie.com/>