[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] A few lessons I have learned (June, '03)
Hi Folks, Below are a few principles which I hold to be true: 1. Frequently, data endures but the applications which processes the data comes and goes. 2. Separate everything: - separate data from presentation - separate data from applications that process the data - separate semantic definitions from application code - separate hyperlink definitions from data (put hyperlink definitions in a linkbase) 2. Freedom is not "do anything you want". That is chaos. Unbridled XML leads to chaos. Freedom is brought about through discipline. Bring order to instance data by conforming to a design pattern. The RDF Class/Property/Value design pattern seems like a good choice to control the chaos. 3. Minimize exacting requirements on the *form* of instance documents. Expect diversity of expression. Corollary: In designing schemas apply liberal quantities of <any> and <all>; minimize use of <sequence> and minOccurs="1". 4. Take a step forward to machine understanding of instance data by documenting how the data relates to other things in the world: How does the class of data in the instance document relate to other classes of data? What are the characteristics of the properties? Answers to these questions constitute a logical model. OWL seems like a good choice for declaratively expressing logical models. I invite your suggestions for deletions/extensions/modifications to this list. /Roger
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