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RE: are native XML databases needed?

• To: "'Linda Grimaldi'" <grimlinda@e...>,"'Owen Walcher'" <xpriori@o...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: are native XML databases needed?
• From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:41:41 +0100
• In-reply-to: <27651359.1093453900629.JavaMail.root@b...>
• Thread-index: AcSKxn7gRX54hwTASmqB7Wi5W618XQAApkLg

> At least with the implementations I am familiar with,  natvie 
> XML dbs do their own version of shredding.  Randomly 
> accessing XML document contents efficiently requires this.  
> Now, their implementations are optimized for XML, an 
> important difference from relational approaches, but their 
> storage image is far from document form. 

I think it's a little far-fetched to treat as equivalent a system with an
internal data structure designed specifically as an implementation of the
hierarchical XML data model, and a system that constructs a tabular
representation using a data model that was never even designed to enable
recursive queries. If you've ever had a corridor conversation with someone
trying to implement mixed content or comments and PIs or namespaces in a
shredded table, you can only feel sorry for the guy. 

> 
> And, of course, they don't have to be as good at it as a 
> native XML DB.  They just have to be good enough.

Here you are certainly right. A new database technology, operating system,
or programming language has to be rather special to displace the established
30-year-old stuff that most of us work with.

But I once thought that C would never be displaced, and overnight Java came
along and everyone decided it was the next thing. I don't know why it
happens, but sometimes the industry decides to take a step forwards.

Michael Kay

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: are native XML databases needed?
    • From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>

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  • Re: are native XML databases needed?
    • From: Linda Grimaldi <grimlinda@e...>

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