[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: 3 XML Design Principles - a rebuttal
+1 Kind Regards, Joseph Chiusano Booz Allen Hamilton Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World > -----Original Message----- > From: Frank Manola [mailto:fmanola@a...] > Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 5:15 PM > To: Roger L. Costello > Cc: 'XML Developers List' > Subject: Re: 3 XML Design Principles - a rebuttal > > Roger-- > > This is getting there, but it seems to me there's a basic > idea that needs to be more explicit, and catered to, in much > of your exposition. > It's embedded in some of your examples, and several of the > earlier respondents have mentioned it using different words. > The principle is that designs (of anything) need to be > evaluated with respect to satisfying an identified set of > requirements. Designs don't exist in a vacuum. In other > words, extend what you say below: "Every engineering > decision has its pros and cons", to read something like > "Every engineering decision has its pros and cons *with > respect to satisfying specific requirements*". What's the > problem you're trying to solve with a given design? > > Your summary of coupling illustrates some awareness of this > point, where you note the relationship of coupling to > processing requirements. On the other hand, your summary of > principle #3 refers to "ease of management" and "ease of > understanding" in a rather general way. What kind of > "management" or "understanding"? (E.g., I can think of > situations where it's the nested form that's easier to > understand; that's why so many forms use nesting, rather than > small chunks with lots of internal identifiers). > > Another point that may also be worth mentioning is that often > a particular requirement can be satisfied in more than one > way, and you need to take that into account too. For > example, in your initial example you discuss explicit vs. > implicit relationships. Explicit relationships are a good > idea in general, but there's often more than one way to > provide information about a relationship. In this example, > for instance, you separate pickers and lots and show the > relationship with a locatedOn attribute. But there are > alternatives. For example (considering just this one issue > in isolation): > > * if that's the only relationship between pickers and lots, > and you don't want to cater for later extensions to represent > other relationships, then you could have continued to use the > nested structure, and indicated (if necessary, in a > machine-processable form of some kind) the "meaning" of the > relationship in a separate document of some kind (i.e., > saying in effect "pickers contained in lots are those located there") > > or > > * you could have added an additional nested element, as in > > <Lot id="1"> > <ripe-grapes>4</ripe-grapes> > <pickersLocatedAt> > <Picker id="John"> > <metabolism>2</metabolism> > <grape-wealth>20</grape-wealth> > </Picker> > </pickersLocatedAt> > </Lot> > > Those alternatives may be better or worse with respect to > some requirements (or processing assumptions) you have in > mind, but what are those requirements? > > --Frank > > > Roger L. Costello wrote: > > > > Outstanding discussion! Thanks Christian for keeping me honest. > > Every engineering decision has its pros and cons. I failed to > > consider that in my original post. So, I have completely > rewritten my > > original post to (hopefully) reflect a more balanced perspective. > > Have I fairly captured the pros and cons of the 3 issues I try to > > address? /Roger > > > > > > snip > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > 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://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php> > >
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