[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: DTDs, W3C Schemas, RELAX NG, Schematron?
IMH (and oft-stated) opinion, we lose the very promise of XML. The number of correspondents and counterparties with whom we might exchange documents and perhaps execute transactions is vastly greater if the only required preconditions are lexical--i.e., the syntax of well formed XML. Granted, because we lack prior agreements in 'value space' on which to understand those interchanges and predicate those transactions, it will be necessary (and often long and painful) for us to build up with lexical tools the minimal one-to-one understandings we need to give each of those interactions its necessary meaning. The point is that it can be done, however distasteful the process for doing it anew with each new correspondent might seem to those who would rather short-circuit the effort by limiting their interactions to those who will accept a priori their definitions of 'value space'. I have spent more than twenty years working with applications built on RDBMs and relational wannabes. They are great and useful tools, but only in an homogenous enterprise network where the processing nodes have intimate (white box) knowledge of each others' processing and base their interoperability on working against identical data structures. Those are precisely not the conditions of the internetwork topology. If we want to extend the possibility of interoperability to every potential internetwork participant, we cannot begin by first constraining to universe of those to whom we will talk to only those who are willing to accept a priori our own peculiar and limited renditions of value space. Respectfully, Walter Perry "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote: > What options do we lose if we strengthen the coupling to a primitive type > set? I don't think I could work with relational systems without value > types, and we do seem to share them among that application type sensibly; > but is that the only application type one would have to share them with?
|
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
|