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

Re: Flatter is Better (part two)

  • From: Gait Boxman <gait.boxman@tie.nl>
  • To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
  • Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 08:35:42 +0100

Re:  Flatter is Better (part two)
Hi Roger,

maybe our beef with flatter being not better is proven by simple example.
It took the liberty of flattening your email below. Now, please inform us how this flatter version is better than the original..

XML is just a way to (mainly) hierarchically representing an object model.
How that model looks depends on the use. For GIS and route planning applications, it may make sense to have a model where you have a City node with Street nodes with House nodes, for postal and addressing purposes, not so much.

When developing an XML interface, you have to think of your internal model, as well as that of the models that others attach to the data.
In practice, most of the resulting XML interfaces only take into account the developer's own world view, even when that developer consists of an official committee for a e.g. a trade group.
Hence we had at some point 70 XML invoice models on a Microsoft website, each claiming to be the global invoice model, yet with no pair of them actually being interoperable. And that for a piece of information that is globally relatively uniform and very well understood!

Having been in B2B interactions for some 20 odd years now, I can tell you that finding the right model for a B2B document is not simple, and having XML in that area which claims to make it simple has paid my wages for a good part of that since I'm the one that ends up mapping all the variations to my customers' real world view, which is actually their ERP implementation.

--Gait.

On 12/3/2014 11:28 AM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:

hipeteryouwrotethatanxmldesignmusttakeintoconsiderationaprioriknowledgeabouttheenvironmentthatthedesignmustlivewithinbetterisdeterminedbytheneedsofthedataexchangepartnersandcanvarybyusecasenetworkbandwidthtargetdeviceandahostofotherconstraintshowdoesonedesignxmlintheabsenceofsuchaprioriknowledgethatishowdoesonedesignxmlthatcanbeusedoverlotsofdifferentnetworkswithlotsofdifferentbandwidthshowdoesonedesignxmlthatcanbeusedbylotsofdifferentconsumersapplicationswithwidelyvaryingprocessingneedsithoughtthatthewholepointofdesigningxmlistoavoidtyingadesigntoaspecificnetworkaspecificapplicationaspecificusecaseithoughtthatthewholepointofdesigningxmlistocreateadesignthatisusableacrosslotsofdifferentnetworksbylotsofdifferentapplicationsbylotsofdifferentusecasesithoughtthatthewholepointistofreexmlofsuchtetheringxmlrunfreeintheabsenceofaprioriknowledgewemusticontendstripawayallpreconceivednotionsoftherightxmlhierarchycontentthatswhataflatdesignprovidesitprovidesaseriesofcomponentsthatthatcanbemashe dupwithothercomponentscanbetransformedparsedintoanyhierarchyandcanbenormalizedstrippeddowntheflatdesignitseemstomerepresentstheultimategoalofxmlfreedomfromaprioriconstraintsknowledgexmldesignbeeternalcommentsroger



[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index]


PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
 

Stylus Studio has published XML-DEV in RSS and ATOM formats, enabling users to easily subcribe to the list from their preferred news reader application.


Stylus Studio Sponsored Links are added links designed to provide related and additional information to the visitors of this website. they were not included by the author in the initial post. To view the content without the Sponsor Links please click here.

Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.