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Peter.Hunsberger@s... (Hunsberger, Peter) writes: >> [Jeff Lowery] >> Is there a universal mapping language that can be used across >> all data representations (a.k.a. mediums)? At the risk of >> sounding like a thrall of certain fascists, I really do think >> that any such universal mapping language will, at it's heart, >> be formulated on relational algebra. That's not to say that >> all models must conform to integrity constraints under all >> operations; what it does say is that those potential >> integrity violations are understood and handled correctly >> when data is moved from one representation to the next >> through the defined mapping operations. > >Hmm, I might even grant integrity constraint conformation (99.99% or >the time). What I wouldn't necessarily expect is normalizations that >conforms to what experts in the current relational world might expect: >I'm starting to believe that data normalization and metadata >normalization are orthogonal to each other. I think I'm with Peter on this one as far as normalization. At the same time, though, I think there's a huge difference between the expectations of relational databases - which really demand a schema upfront before you're allowed to work with data - and XML, which has no such requirements. No rules, no violation - no harm, no foul. One of these days I'd like to figure out if the math underlying RELAX NG and the math underlying relations can be made compatible. That seems like a plausible path forward toward an easily processable and vaguely cross-media world, but I still don't think it'll cover all the differences. -- Simon St.Laurent Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets Errors, errors, all fall down! http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org
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