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Re: Inheritance in XML

• To: Chiusano Joseph <chiusano_joseph@b...>
• Subject: Re: Inheritance in XML
• From: Burak Emir <Burak.Emir@e...>
• Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:16:18 +0200
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <40D6D833.A372860F@b...>
• References: <000201c454b8$78090830$d278b886@p373> <p06010207bcf8685fee33@[192.168.254.88]> <40D62B57.8E966CAB@b...> <40D6D722.4090101@e...> <40D6D833.A372860F@b...>
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Chiusano Joseph wrote:

>I just recalled a July 2003 thread on the Federal CIO Council XML Web
>Services Working Group listserv in which a writing by Norm Walsh on this
>very topic was referenced[1]. Subject: "XML is Not Object Oriented". I
>provided a somewhat lengthy contribution[2].
>
>Kind Regards,
>Joe Chiusano
>Booz | Allen | Hamilton
>Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World
>
>[1]
>http://listserv.gsa.gov/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307&L=cioc-web-services&F=&S=&P=1267
>[2]
>http://listserv.gsa.gov/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307&L=cioc-web-services&F=&S=&P=2510
>  
>
Thanks for the links - these are interesting reads.

There seems to be a reason why people are so after the direct 
XML+objects connection.

Like the ever-hot web services story, the failure of things like CORBA 
and RMI to excite people on a large scale due to their clumsiness.

Though I agree 100% that XML is not objects, it *is* true that XML can 
(and probably:should) be used to solve OO needs. I am thinking  of:

- serialization across opaque boundaries (you want to transmit your 
objects to a platform, an application that you do not know anything about)
- navigation (even in your plain vanilla Java class, you want to have 
XPath navigation to navigate in the state of the object)

Whether this should influence how we make business models (Norm seems to 
suggest it is hopeless to try to keep the XML even close to objects), I 
don't know. I think it should not matter if business wants to model it 
this way (e.g. some fancy nondeterministic RELAX NG schema) and my 
classes and objects prefer that way (some horrible W3C XML Schema which 
nevertheless corresponds closer to my class hierarchy or the one of the 
libraries that I am using).

There are two problems:
1. get a good API to deal with XML data (nothing to do with objects 
except that the API is OO, something like a very lean DOM with XPath)
2. use XML to solve the problems of OO serialization, navigation in 
object state (which is OO centric and does not apply to XML in general)

I think solutions would be very useful for both, but it still does not 
mean "XML is objects" or anything like that.

cheers,
Burak

• References:
  • Inheritance in XML
    • From: "Mohammad Ghazal" <mghazal@v...>
  • Re: Inheritance in XML
    • From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
  • Re: Inheritance in XML
    • From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>
  • Re: Inheritance in XML
    • From: Burak Emir <Burak.Emir@e...>
  • Re: Inheritance in XML
    • From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>

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