[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

It's just DATA - was Re: Better design: "flatter is better" or

• To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
• Subject: It's just DATA - was Re: Better design: "flatter is better" or "nesting is better" ?
• From: Michael Champion <michaelc.champion@g...>
• Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 08:34:45 -0700
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:cc:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=m/fW2hyMRQQ7ywnEAJtF4fOQ3ZgXQA1EowDdNybvn1di5P3d1u1SJ9XDSOA5U7PU2ElMdJVU5vgew+FJ9AHfCMwkDj4CrIVIAKe2gJ9C4mpkx27Sl3vIX7gwrx8x0tNdJLaXbUQkg/jhwqQGfAMJN7PlcrpbXI5yOosAUSeewKg=
• Reply-to: Michael Champion <michaelc.champion@g...>

On 10/3/05, Costello, Roger L. <costello@m...> wrote:
>
>>
> 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

Maybe I'm missing something, but these questions smell to me like
"given that XML is the hammer, how do I make my data look like a
nail?".

XML as just a particular way of labeling and standardizing *data*.  It
obviously imposes a few constraints  on what kinds of data it can
easily / efficiently handle, but questions about the "role of XML"
seem backwards to me.  Start by thinking about the role of your data
--- is it just the state of an application, is it a master storage
record, is it something that drives a UI, is it information shared by
multiple applications, etc. -- then design it to meet those needs.  If
the needs and the design intersect with XML's tools and use cases, map
the data to XML.  If they don't (as I argued in the original thread,
since the pickers / vineyards scenario cried out for a normalization
and relational storage), don't use XML, or use it only for interchange
scenarios.

There are a lot of interesting (aka "hard") questions relating to the
"map the data to XML" step. Object-XML mapping, Relational-XML
mapping, and classic XML design questions (such as whether to use
elements or attributes, whether the XML ID/IDREF mechanisms are
sufficient to model graphs, how finely to decompose into instances,
etc.) are all still pretty open AFAIK.

• Prev by Date: XML 2005 program additions/ updates announced-- discounts available until October 10 -- Low airfares to Atlanta
• Next by Date: Help Needed to create an XSD
• Previous by thread: XML 2005 program additions/ updates announced-- discounts available until October 10 -- Low airfares to Atlanta
• Next by thread: Help Needed to create an XSD
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread