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Re: 3 XML Design Principles

• To: "'XML Developers List'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: 3 XML Design Principles
• From: Norman Walsh <ndw@n...>
• Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:21:18 -0500
• In-reply-to: <200501291720.j0THK3517843@s...>
• References: <200501291720.j0THK3517843@s...>
• User-agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux)

/ "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...> was heard to say:
[...]
| XML Design Principle #3
|
| Minimize the amount of nesting you use.
|
| Nested data is tightly coupled and uses implicit relationships, both of
| which are bad.
|
| Flat data is good data!
|
| Flat data is loosely coupled and promotes the use of explicit relationships,
| both of which are good.
|
| Comments?  /Roger

Off the top of my head?

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
                            --Alexandre Dumas

Simplification good!  Oversimplification bad!
                            --Larry Wall

With sufficient markup, the important relationships in your data can
be perserved across transformations. Need to write an application that
can move a 100 pickers around in 1000 lots? Tease the lots and the
pickers apart, using pointers to preserve their locations, and shuffle
at will. Need to produce a table showing all the lots and which
pickers are in them? Shuffle it all together into a tabular structure.
I don't think any of your suggestions qualify as design rules
in the general case.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@n...> | A man may by custom fortify himself
http://nwalsh.com/            | against pain, shame, and suchlike
                              | accidents; but as to death, we can
                              | experience it but once, and are all
                              | apprentices when we come to it.--
                              | Montaigne

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