xml-dev - RE: W3C XML Schema Questionaire

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

I agree, Rick, as long as we have some 
means to determine the scope of "pressing needs". 
For the Schema designers, following your 
train of thought, the first consumers 
are the other spec writers.  For the 
example Amy and Michael discuss, the consumers 
are product managers and developers.  We 
have to differentiate the requirements of 
these different consumers.

Schema is a very big departure from traditional 
markup technology.  As one local described it, 
"I feel like I am designing a document 
according to the rules of Grady Booch".  With 
XML 1.0, we had lots of experience to draw 
on, so it could be done quickly.  With Schema, 
we have DTDs in the mainstream community, and 
the input from the formal language designers, 
database designers, etc.  That is a wide scope. 

Because we have working tools like XDR, and 
because it is still early, I would not be 
disappointed to see Schema return to the 
drawing board for another round.  On the other 
hand, that should be done in my opinion, only 
if there are real flaws.  As SGML showed, 
complexity and obscurity are not sufficient 
to reject a specification, but it may be a 
reason to create a simpler version.  In this 
case, we already have a simpler version.


Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
clbullar@ingr.com
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/lensongs.ram

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick JELLIFFE [mailto:ricko@geotempo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 11:49 PM
To: xml-dev@xml.org
Subject: Re: W3C XML Schema Questionaire


I join Jonathan in asking XML-DEV-ers to fill out his questionaire, and
commend him for his initiative. 

Michael Champion wrote:
> 
> From: "Amy Lewis" <amyzing@talsever.com>

> > Is *anyone* going to answer that it's okay to have "flaws"?   

Yes, because that person may be happy that the flaws are irrelevant to
their requirements. 
  
> Likewise, if the Schema spec goes to Recommendation status before there is
> extensive implementation experience by *independent* developers and
*proof*
> that the independent implementations of the spec interoperate cleanly,
then
> the W3C is essentially saying "it's OK to have flaws ... we'll fix them
> later ... but we have to get the spec out now [for some reason or other]."

The idea of the CR period is to allow extensive implementation
experience to tell. For example, Arnold Curt's project: I am happy to
report (unofficially, but as a member of the WG not paid by commercial
interests) that his feedback (like that of other developers) seems to be
being treated just as seriously as feedback from commercial developers. 

> A "flawed" standard (we probably used euphemisms such as "slighly
> buggy" or "not completely stable") was considered to be better than no
> standard.  In retrospect, I think we did the right thing.
 
Yes, that is a very important criterion: does the spec meet the actual
pressing need of the day?  What is the pressing need: is it to support
being able to define SVG, XSL-FO, XHTML, XBase, etc? Is it to support
e-commerce? Is it to integrate Java and SQL systems?   Is it to allow
types for defining user interfaces?

One can evaluate XML Schemas on general terms as a universal schema
language. But it is more important at this stage, IMHO, to evaluate it
in terms of its sufficiency for meeting the pressing needs of the day as
the bottom line.

Rick Jelliffe
Academia Sinica
Taipei

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