[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Re: What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a "kilometer"?
This is an advantage. But effectively, you have introduced a new requirement- not just to describe the length of the river, but to allow for conversion. The conversion aspect introduces an important differentiator- kilometer itself can usefully be assigned properties which means it has to be promoted from a simple value. Linda -------Original Message------- From: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...> Sent: 07/17/03 01:45 PM To: xml-dev@l... Subject: Re: What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a "kilometer"? > > Alaric B Snell wrote: > Roger L. Costello wrote: > > > This is quite a radical approach. I am surprised that there > > aren't more comments, since the "conventional wisdom" is > > not to treat kilometer as a property/relation/function, but rather > > to treat it as the value of a property, e.g., > > > > <River id="Yangtze"> > > <length unit="kilometer">6300</length> > > </River> > > The advantage of "<kilometres>6300</kilometres>" as opposed to <length > unit="kilometre"> is in modularity of type definition. I believe that the key advantage of this approach: <River id="Yangtze"> <length> <kilometer>6300</kilometer> </length> </River> is the capability to state the relationship to a length value expressed using a different unit-of-measure, e.g., <River id="Yangtze"> <length> <mile>3914</mile> </length> </River> Namely, the relationship is: "a kilometer property is equal to a mile property times 1.62". A very compelling example of this capability is to determine that two documents, which express a location using different units-of-measure, are referring to the same location, e.g., <Map id="M1"> <location> <cartesian-coordinate> ... </cartesian-coordinate> </location> </Map> <Map id="M21"> <location> <polar-coordinate> ... </polar-coordinate> </location> </Map> Namely, the relationship is: "a cartesian-coordinate property is equal to a polar-coordinate property ...". (If someone can complete this sentence I would be very interested. I have long forgotten how to convert coordinate systems.) I don't believe that with the other approach: <River id="Yangtze"> <length units="kilometers">6300</length> </River> it would be possible to make such relationship statements, and that's a show-stopping disadvantage. Thoughts? /Roger ----------------------------------------------------------------- The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl> >
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