[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Storing Lots of Fiddly Bits (was Re: What is XML for?)
Paul Prescod wrote: ... > > You certainly would if you use XML as *only* a serialization. The thrust > of this thread was that some people want to encode everything in XML so > that they can "query it." But XML is a lousy query representation for > anything other than human-authored documents. (and debatably the best > thing for queries against those!) > and later... > > I think that this is Eliot's point. Consider someone who says that if you > put a "DOM interface" on all objects everywhere in the system then they > all become managable because they have a "single API." Smart (but usually > inexperienced) people say this. These people are talking about an API to > the serialization structure instead of an API to their original data. > They've gained some uniformity but lost some abstraction. That is very > seldom a useful trade-off. To make their processing useful again their > very next step will be to add in some abstraction on top of the DOM. Then > they're back to where they started. > > This is one of the most pervasive misunderstandings in XML-world. You have missed the point here. If I put a DOM interface onto a SQL Server or Oracle or ODI or Poet database, I am hardly using an API to the serialization structure. When people say this, they mean that the DOM API/interface is used against the native datastore. The utility of this would demonstrate itself in a distributed environment where something like XQL was used as a query language. If we are in the relational db world, ODBC/SQL 92 provides an interface onto disparate databases. Not all information is stored on relational dbs. The DOM interface aims to provide the same database and vendor neutrality and interoperability that ODBC or JDBC provides for tabular data. If I am using a DOM interface, it frankly doesn't matter what the serialization format is, I am interacting directly with data through an interace. I wouldn't suggest that the DOM replace ODBC, yet I'm quite sure that those experienced using a variety of systems with disparate data types and data usages will appreciate that certain types of data are best expressed in tree format. Such data scenario's might best be interfaced with via the DOM. XSL transforms can be applied directly to DOM representations, rather than serialized XML documents. This yeilds the possibility that serial transforms be applied within 'DOM space' (assuming the XSL transform output is a DOM structure rather than a serialized string). The act, thus, of web page generation from a database can be automated via XSL rather than, say ASP or perl scripts. Is this useful? Sometimes it is. Are the DOM interfaces the best for all situations, clearly not. However if a significant percentage of people can agree to use them a significant percentage of the time, this is a big win. Jonathan Borden http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|