[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Regarding the vote on XML Schema.
Marketing plays a role, but this is not an effort launched by conspirators on fools. The distribution of the working software from Microsoft, Oracle, Xerces (thanks Steve), the best practices papers, the generalizable examples, the industry vertical and ad hoc vocabularies, all of these will gain the acceptance of XML Schema or not. Rick is right as usual that there will be alternatives. It doesn't change XML Schema. It becomes another axe in the gig bag that we know how to play. People kicked DTDs in the head for two decades. They have never died. People lauded various open document standards for most of that period which were ostensibly techically superior and now hydrogen can't float them. Other languages like VRML, touted widely as dead, going nowhere, cling tenaciously to the niche and will not be extinguished, in fact, have spawned competitive children (X3D, XMT, RM3D) that will interoperate. Give XML Schema a year. If the market adopts it, there is no cause to complain. If the market doesn't, there is no need. Len http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti. Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h -----Original Message----- From: Murali Mani [mailto:mani@C...] Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 1:32 AM To: Rick Jelliffe Cc: xml-dev@l... Subject: Re: Regarding the vote on XML Schema. Yes, I *fully* agree that work is more important than debate, let us get the work done before we start debating as to what should be the standard. But I think at least some members of this list are sceptical about why XML Schema is in a proposed recommendation -- when everyone kind of agrees that we still do not know sufficiently -- I wonder how many people actually know about RELAX/TREX outside this group. I think I have experienced in prominent XML research circles, people know nothing about RELAX and TREX, and are not interested in any study on these approaches. The question I think is what effect does XML Schema have on other efforts -- I think almost everyone of us like to see XML schema's marketing not subduing other efforts - I believe this is the greatest concern for most people. Also, I believe everyone appreciates the work done by all the concerned parties -- there are no winners or losers -- the goal is to move towards the best solution, and every approach, correct or wrong, is a forward step and adds to our knowledge and experience. Users will ultimately adopt the solution which gives the most value to them -- but in this case, are the users actually provided with this choice is the question. I am not sure, but I think this probably cannot happen unless W3C honestly announces something close to the effect that it is studying the approaches by both the parties. Let us generate sufficient interest in the people to study both the approaches, and let us finally make a decision. There could be people like me who totally believe in the solution from RELAX/TREX, there could be people who adopt the solution from XML Schema, but i think this should be studied by sufficient people for some more time. There might not be unanimity, but i think almost everyone is very reasonable. But do we believe that the opposition to XML schema is merely the unanimity problem a difficult specification faces? I am not sure whether I am answering Rick's question straight -- but which is a monolith -- RELAX or XML Schema? How many people have actually read the entire XML Schema specification -- I am sorry but I think I find sufficient number of typos to distinterest me even in the Primer draft. <warning>speaking for himself only</warning> cheers - murali. On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Rick Jelliffe wrote: > From: Murali Mani <mani@C...> > > >There should be good reasons why two very > >prolific mathematicians and XML practitioners such as James Clark and > >Makoto Murata have decided not to adopt fully the solution proposed by XML > >Schema > > Yes. But why should anyone expect there to be unanimity? Surely the big > thing that we can learn from XML Schemas is that the expectation that we can > have a single language--no matter how big or small, elegant or rich, > feathered or porpoise-like--that is suitable for everyone is a fantasy. > Which is why questions of whether we prefer ambiguous to unambigous > grammars, or the Islamic calendar to the Gregorian calendar, should be dealt > with _after_ we have built a suitable framework for modular but controllable > schemas. With a modular framework, the stakes are lower, we are not forced > to make decisions on issues which have no single obvious winnner. > > Without modularity we are forced into an unpleasant world of winners and > losers, depending on whether our application's needs are consonant with the > ones weighed highly by the particular schema language developers. > > Merely saying "XML Schemas bad! RELAX good!" keeps the cart before the > horse. If there is no modularity or ability to plug-n-play with different > kinds of schema, then every little engineering trade-off has to be subjected > to exhaustive discussion (as in XML Schemas) with no guarantee that the > result will satisfy everyone. > > It is good to have a nice powerful, branded language that can support test > suites and be reasoned about enough to allow efficient storage and querying. > But does that require a monolith? > > Cheers > Rick Jelliffe > > P.S. Just before RELAX and TREX, there was the excellent DSD [2] too. It > has many useful ideas. > [1] http://www.liss.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/xml-dev-Dec-1999/0687.html > [2] http://www.xmlhack.com/read.php?item=135 > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org, an initiative of OASIS > <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To unsubscribe from this elist send a message with the single word > "unsubscribe" in the body to: xml-dev-request@l... > ------------------------------------------------------------------ The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org, an initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ To unsubscribe from this elist send a message with the single word "unsubscribe" in the body to: xml-dev-request@l...
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