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Specs are not insane, people are

• To: <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Specs are not insane, people are
• From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
• Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 16:23:01 +1100
• References: <36C08A70-E9A2-11D6-9F26-0030657E2F34@m...> <3DBC14D3.9070601@p...>

From: "Paul Prescod" <paul@p...>
 
> tblanchard@m... wrote:

> > 4) Schema is really an insane spec. 
> 
> Try RELAX, Schematron or Examplotron.  

Apparantly, according to Aristotle's splendidly named Posterior Analytics[1]
we understand by starting from what is well-known and going to what 
is less well-known. 

So people judge a schema language by their expectations, expertise, knowledge.
Most people think Schematron is simple but one commentary found it difficult!
There will always be differences, especially because schema languages for
XML are not really primary logical data models (as many would like) or
predicates that allow a mapping of relations to physical structures, but
rather are a physical model.  Consequently, most schema languages for
XML will work best (if one is trying to use them as a logical model) for
data sets when there is little difference between the logical and the physical.

?Which kinds of data are these: trivially, heirarchical structures with
a strong ordering between elements. And, structures which can typically
be processed efficiently by knowledge of the ancestors and their attributes.

So the issue is not "why is this spec insane?" but "are the people who made
it insane?" to which the answer will in most cases be "no, they are rationally
trying to solve a particular set of problems, but their problems are probably
not your problems".  And hence, their standards need not be our standards.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

[1] e.g. http://willwilkinson.net/essays/Aristotle.html
also influences Arabic and Scholastic philosophy[2[
[2] http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/rep/H021.htm

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    • From: tblanchard@m...
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    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>

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