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RE: Better design: "flatter is better" or "nesting is better"

• To: "'Costello, Roger L.'" <costello@m...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Better design: "flatter is better" or "nesting is better" ?
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 16:27:47 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: Costello, Roger L. [mailto:costello@m...]
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 4:12 PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: RE: Better design: "flatter is better" or "nesting is better" ?

Hi Folks,

 

Excellent discussion!

 

A lot of important issues have been raised.  I would like to focus on one issue, and then come back to the other issues.

 

The issue is this: what are the roles of an XML document?

 

As I have been doing with my previous messages, I will make a hypothesis and then invite your critique.

Hypothesis: The Role of an XML Document is either as a Storage Medium or as a Transport Format

An XML document may take one of these roles:

 

(1) The XML document is a storage medium.  Applications operate directly on the XML document.

 

(2) The XML document is a (transient) transport format.  Upon arrival at its destination the data is moved into a storage medium (such as a relational database).  Applications do not operate on the XML document.  Applications operate on the data in the storage medium.

 

Questions:

 

1. I believe that these two roles represent the two ends of the spectrum for all possible uses of XML.  (Of course, mixed forms are possible)  Is there another role that is not captured?  (i.e., a third dimension?)

 

2. Peter: I think that XML documents containing presentation-specific data falls under the first category (XML as a storage medium).  Do you agree?

 

3. Doug: you make an interesting point about not knowing who will be the consumer of an XML document.  I suppose in those cases the XML designer simply makes a best-guess on the role of the XML document.  What do you think?

 

4. Joe: you make an interesting point about XML documents that are transformed into another XML vocabulary.  Would such documents fall under the second category (XML as a transport format)?

 

5. Ken: you mentioned the case of XML being stuffed into a relational database as a whole document (i.e., not shredded into tables), and applications operating directly on the XML documents in the database.  How does this fit into the above categories, or does it?

 

Comments?  /Roger

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