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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XML Schemas: the wrong name
 [Elliotte Rusty Harold:] > "Schema" is a generic word used in computer science. Overloading the word "schema" is a clever way to get the RDBMS world on board with XML. We're not interchanging documents; we're interchanging databases by using a markup language for which the parsers are free and standard! See, we have lexical models for our fields, just like databases do! The marketing makes a lot of sense. As I see it, the overloading of the word "schema" is symptomatic of a much more general problem: the "papering over" of the differences in the requirements that govern APIs, on the one hand, and the requirements that govern information interchange, on the other. There is this common wisdom out there that the structure of interchanged information should also be, in effect, the API to that same information. But, in fact, it's only true for a simple subset of the kinds of information that need to be interchanged, and to which APIs must be provided. The fact that the word "schema" is now used to mean "model for interchange objects" as well as "model for ready-to-run information" further hides the important distinctions between the two realms. I don't think anybody really benefits from this confusion, so it's hard for me to work up any paranoia about it. It's just a phase in the story of civilization, like feudalism. We'll get over it someday. Probably a lot faster than feudalism. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant srn@c... voice: +1 972 359 8160 fax: +1 972 359 0270 405 Flagler Court Allen, Texas 75013-2821 USA "We're not exactly anti-schema, but we're sure pro-DTD." -- doctypes.org 
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