Content in web applications

[Gino Verhulst]

Hey, I 'm a java programmer, but without the working knowledge (thank you Economical Crisis), so here's my question:

In large web applications, how is content normally saved? Not the usual stuff that fits nicely in a database. What do you do with let 's say entire articles you might want to publish?

Is it common to use a java cms like apache lenya? Or maybe use xml files with your own dtd to store content?

Any enlightment is welcome :-)

Greetings
Arne

[Ulf Dittmer]

Using files of any kind would be rare for a CMS these days. DBs are well suited even for lengthy text.

[Gino Verhulst]

Is it possible that a more lightweight framework like grails is more suitable than spring and hibernate to make interactive websites?

And second, let 's say for example Tripadvisor. They have a lot of content, including images, how can you manage something like that?

[David Newton]

Grails is built on Spring and Hibernate...

Content is almost always stored in a database; not sure why you don't believe that. Assets like images, music, etc. are generally stored on the filesystem, but not always.

[Gino Verhulst]

It's not that i dont believe it It's just that i'm having a hard time putting it all together.
So then i guess most of it is done thorugh the view technology, spring mvc and it 's views for example..

Thanks a lot for the insight so far guys!

[David Newton]

Most of what?

I guess I'm not sure what's tripping you up.

[Gino Verhulst]

I'm sorry. I cant see the forest through the trees anymore.
By "it" I meant putting it all together. Retrieving the right content, fitting in the right images, etc

But what about tags? And by the way, are there any books you 'd recommend that give an insight into web applications and how content is handled?

[Gino Verhulst]

And with tags i mean folksonomy and how you store it

[David Newton]

Tags are just data: so an article would have a list of associated tags, probably in a table of article id => tag id, but there are other options.