[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Extract A Subset of a W3C XML Schema?
From: Paul Brown [mailto:prb@f...] > [Claude Bullard] > It's tough to tell designers that XML only really cares > about well-formedness and then get them to buy into a > system based on validity. It's like giving them free > popsicles without sticks. >Or, put another way, XML only solves the problem of inlining metadata, >not providing semantic and structural consistency to that metadata. Structural consistency it can support. Semantic consistency is hard for any syntax-only system. That is for object modelers: pick one and stick with it. As they said, it took EDI some decades to get more than a few supporters. On the other hand, that means there are now more than a few semantics to be pillaged by the XML business modelers. No doubt they are. >Most people meet semantic and structural incompatibility in XML documents >only later in their life as XML users, which is unfortunate, and it's >hard for people to imagine the difference between XML representations of >a single tangible, concrete object in the real world. Incompatibilities >in representation and semantics are also where cost (for disputes, for >integration, etc.) enter the picture, making it doubly unfortunate. >(Because it spawns things like: >http://www.optimizemag.com/mckinsey/2003/0721.html) The chicken and the egg problem of adoption and tools support is a known. It is also how software engineers make money selling new tools to improve old ideas and processes. That's the biz. OTOHJ, the article says "the installation of XML calls for process reengineering" It doesn't have to. Some people make that happen as they do because they can and know they should. People moving to XML are probably sitting on processes and software that are long in the tooth, so the CIO decides to pick up all the jacks with one toss of the ball. That is a lifecycle problem, not an XML problem. However, ten years from now when it is time to molt the skin of these processes, I'd rather be in a position to do it with data and operations over markup than without it. IME, XML and schemas are there for clarification of intent about names and structures, and then deciding if that is to be used for automation or just as a means of documentation. But they can't solve completely the issues of definitional scale: local systems of definition vs. global systems of definition. They can't even completely isolate them. For that, one needs something like RDF, and then one still has to deal with the politics of adoption, and the reality that meaning drifts in any open system of communication. That is why the registry does operate best at the atomic level just as software likes encapsulation. Old news but we are software geeks. It is the commercial where the kid after attempting to tell them details he finds relevant finally just says, "we're saving 5 cents a transaction". It would interesting to see where he gets those savings. I'm not building for the masses. After CALS, I found the crusades to build application languages that "Everyone must adopt or die" to be ego exercises that while not fruitless, are some boring. One waits a long time to get the cookie. Application languages that do something interesting for anyone who downloads a handler and can get reasonable editing support, aren't boring. I like bits like X3D. It works now but the range of applications is unknown. That makes for great adventure: a sound ship, a good crew, a fuzzy map, some possible monsters, and some beauties to be convinced to sign on. That is great fun. If one wants to conquer the world, raise an army. If one wants to pillage and party, raise a crew. Yo ho ho and all that. >One approach that looks interesting is the UDEF: > http://www.udef.org >Which at least attempts to provide some equivalence between ns1:tomato >and ns2:tomatoe... I'm not one with a lot of faith in efforts that have the word 'universal' in them. Boltzman entropy is software chiggers. I appreciate any effort to cross-index. It saves me some time finding the right thing to steal and extend. ;-) Evil geniuses for a better tomorrow, always. len
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