xml-dev - Re: About template. part 2

[Len Bullard <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Didier PH Martin wrote:
> 
> Can we envision an XML document with a
> structure varying in time? We may have to if we want to create "data flow"
> systems to model business processes (i.e. workflows).

Sure.  Think at the level of a single element type and it's immediate 
tree fully expanded (no entities).  One issue that seriously impeded 
acceptance of SGML application languages was that they became hideously 
complex.  Break the schema/DTD whatever, up into the smallest portions 
practical and think of aggregates of much smaller namespaces; put these 
together can considering them coordinate subsets that can be combined 
by intersections of shared types.  Write DTDs dynamically to reflect 
process and DFD interaction.  

I agree with Eliot and David about the lack of follow through on systems 
engineering using SGML or XML.   There is not much change in the 
practice; just the representation.  Most systems engineering
methodologies 
resolve to relational schemas (E-R).  W need a methodology that 
resolves to a multidimensional database where aggregate element types 
can represent dimensions and cells.  Then, time is just one of the 
dimensions of that description, and nicely, the one that is most 
stable because its hierarchy is clean.

len



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