The VoiceXML Handbook - Understanding and Building the Phone-Enabled Web

Description

CMP Books, 2001. — 338 p.In the summer of 2000, I came across the VoiceXML 1.0 standard published by the VoiceXML Forum. I downloaded the specification and began to read it. I had been working on software development in computer telephony for more than 10 years, but I was completely baffled; I couldn't understand most of the specification. I had no idea what the motivation or underlying philosophy was—in short, I didn't "get" the language at all. Gradually, I realized my problem. I was the wrong kind of person. In particular, I wasn't a Web person — I had little experience of Internet technologies. The language was designed and described by people who lived and breathed Web servers and Web browsers, they took this background knowledge and conceptual framework for granted. So I decided to learn about TCP/IP, URLs, HTTP, HTML and graphical browsers. That made all the difference—now VoiceXML started to make sense. As I talked to people in the industry, I discovered that I wasn't alone, there were others who were interested but had trouble understanding VoiceXML: they didn't know enough about the Web, they didn't know enough about computer telephony, or they just wanted some other place to go if they didn't understand something in the standard. That's when I decided to write this book. My first goal was to explain the concepts and technologies behind the Word Wide Web, telecommunications and computer telephony that you'll need to fully understand VoiceXML. Then I wanted to introduce VoiceXML step by step, starting with a simple "Hello, world" sample and gradually introducing new constructs in the language. Finally I wanted to present a comprehensive reference to VoiceXML in a complementary format to the engineering specification. By explaining the same things in a completely different way, I hoped to provide an alternative source of reference material for implementers and users of the VoiceXML language.The Telephony-Enabled Web Web Browsing XML, The Extensible Markup Language Telecommunications Computer Telephony Text-to-Speech Speech Recognition VoiceXML: The Basics VoiceXML Text-To-Speech Markup VoiceXML Grammars VoiceXML Scripting VoiceXML: Other Features VoiceXML Reference: Tags VoiceXML Reference: Attributes VoiceXML Reference: Events, Properties and Variables VoiceXML Reference: Changes from Version 1.0 to 2.0