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Re: RNG more popular with doc heads and XSD with data heads?

• To: "DuCharme, Bob (LNG-CHO)" <bob.ducharme@l...>
• Subject: Re: RNG more popular with doc heads and XSD with data heads?
• From: Robert Koberg <rob@k...>
• Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 07:16:58 -0800
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <FEF4858E8AB32D4EAC2CF2A7D85386EBE52F44@l...>
• References: <FEF4858E8AB32D4EAC2CF2A7D85386EBE52F44@l...>
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DuCharme, Bob (LNG-CHO) wrote:

> I saw someone (don't remember who) make the generalization recently that
> RELAX NG is gaining in popularity with people doing XML work with
> irregularly structured documents that would end up being published in some
> medium or other (the "doc heads"), and that W3C Schemas are more entrenched
> with the XML developers doing systems involved in more transactional
> processes such as web services and database interaction ("data heads"). Does
> anyone strongly agree or disagree with this? 

I believe you are referring to a response by Dare Obesanjo (sp?) to some 
questions I had.

> 
> An important auxiliary question: how many large publishing organizations
> (i.e. doc heads with lots of documents) have 1. made a strong commitment to
> XSD, 2. made a strong commitment to RNG, or 3. are still sticking with DTDs?

Well, we may not fall under 'large publ orgs' but we do publish a great 
deal to HTML for the web.

For our CMS, I initially started using an RNG schema for content and 
transforming it to JavaScript objects for client side schema validated 
editing. It was a maintenence nightmare.

When MS announced they were going to allow XSD validated editing in Word 
and I knew I could use MSXML's SOM in IE for validated editing, I 
switched to XSD. Using MSXML's SOM in IE has been *much* easier to 
maintain than transforming RNG to JS. If clients want to use MSWord11 to 
edit the content they can (no one has yet). This has been a simple(?) 
business decision.

If there was some kind of SOM for RNG available in browsers, I would 
seriously consider switching (not as a plugin, though).

best,
-Rob

Sometimes you follow your heart. Sometimes your heart cuts a fart.
-Tenacious D

> 
> Just *why* RNG would be more attractive to doc heads and XSD to data heads
> seems fairly obvious to me--RNG allows greater precision in how tightly or
> loosely you specify content model constraints, XSD makes mapping to
> relational and OO systems easier, transactional XML specs are usually
> written in XSD, etc.--so I'd rather not start a big long thread adding to
> these "why" lists. I'm more interested in hearing about the levels of
> commitment among doc heads that people have seen to the three choices listed
> above, to get an idea of where we're all headed.
> 
> Bob DuCharme          www.snee.com/bob           <bob@  
> snee.com>  "The elements be kind to thee, and make thy
> spirits all of comfort!" Anthony and Cleopatra, III ii
> 

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  • RNG more popular with doc heads and XSD with data heads?
    • From: "DuCharme, Bob (LNG-CHO)" <bob.ducharme@l...>

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