[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be b

• To: "bryan" <bry@i...>,"'Dimitre Novatchev'" <dnovatchev@y...>
• Subject: RE: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
• From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>
• Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 10:25:37 -0500
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <003301c2f50e$cb1b81c0$2001a8c0@bryans>
• References: <b5vki9$ol7$1@m...>

Data is hard for programmers.

XML has made data easier for programmers by giving it a standard, easily 
processed representation. As Tim points out, it's still harder to deal with 
XML than with the native structures of any language. For instance, objects 
are easier for object oriented languages than the XML equivalent that 
contains the same data. So you wind up working with libraries like the DOM, 
that seem like one level of indirection off from the business logic, or you 
wind up using regular expressions with Perl....

Or you use a language that understands XML, like XSLT or XQuery. And if you 
want to be able to use the XML Schema types, you can import the types into 
XQuery. Tim dismissed the notion of using an XML-oriented language with two 
arguments:

1. Tim notes that SQL isn't used for business logic, and asks why XQuery 
should be different. Well, as Tim points out, you can't implement any 
serious business logic in SQL. You can in XQuery. I think that makes a 
difference. Of course, the lack of updates in XQuery 1.0 is an important 
limitation - and one that will be overcome.

2. Tim says that there is no one data model for XML, and without a data 
model you can't have a language. As proof, he says:

      Empirical evidence: I can point to a handful of different popular
      XML-in-Java APIs each of which has its own data model and each of
      which works. So why would you think that there's a data model
      there to build a language around?

I find this a strange argument. Each of these APIs depends on having a data 
model, and demonstrates that data models for XML can be created. A language 
like XQuery or XSLT also needs to have such a data model, but the fact that 
another API or language might choose a different datamodel is rather 
irrelevant. After all, it's possible to have an object oriented programming 
language even though a different object oriented language would represent 
the same data in a different way.

Jonathan

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer,perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>

• References:
  • Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
    • From: "Dimitre Novatchev" <dnovatchev@y...>
  • RE: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
    • From: "bryan" <bry@i...>

• Prev by Date: RE: XML into SQL and out again
• Next by Date: GXA specifications process
• Previous by thread: RE: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
• Next by thread: Re: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer,perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread