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RE: Stability of schemas -- frequency of versioning

• From: Norm Birkett <Norm.Birkett@reval.com>
• To: "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
• Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:25:43 +0000

Well said.

Perhaps it's worth adding that some benefits are costs avoided, and some 
are gains made. Changes made to achieve cost-avoidance benefits often
take resources away from more gain-driven changes. Having high running
costs that one must either pay or pay to avoid limits one's freedom
of decision.

Poor software design tends both to impose running costs and to 
increase the cost of changes that are likely to be gainful. (The same can
be said of poorly managed software evolution--that is, bad design can be
built in or it can be grown into.)

Which is a long-winded way of saying that designing software well is a 
really good idea.

Which leads me to a question for the list: Have you observed any tendency
among software developers to slight the design of XML languages, by 
comparison with other interfaces (such as database schemas or APIs)?

If so, do you think that's because they suppose that tagged data is
somehow easier to change at the schema level than non-tagged data?

(I ask because I'm trying to get a sense of how software engineers tend
to think about XML schemas, and you all have WAY more experience with this
than I do.)

Norm Birkett


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@saxonica.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 11:00 AM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re:  Stability of schemas -- frequency of versioning
> 
> On 21/11/2011 12:58, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > How frequently should schemas be allowed to change?
> >
> >
> I don't think schemas in this respect are any different from other
> components of a software system, especially interfaces that many other
> components depend on. There is typically a high cost of change and the
> right time to change is when the benefit exceeds the cost.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
> 
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• References:
  • Stability of schemas -- frequency of versioning
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Stability of schemas -- frequency of versioning
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>