xml-dev - Re: XML Schemas: Best Practices

[Richard Lanyon <rgl@decisionsoft.com>]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2000, Roger L. Costello wrote:

> Before moving on to when it makes sense to make the namespaces explicit
> in instance documents, I would like to pause and address Richard
> Lanyon's concern.  Richard's concern is (paraphrasing): 
> 
> "Okay Roger, let's suppose that it makes sense to localize the
> complexities to the schema.  An author of an instance document will
> still have to read the schema, and understand it, to write the instance
> document.  Correct?  How have we hidden the complexities of the
> schema?"  
> 
> Let me see if I can address this concern satisfactorily:
> 
> [1] An instance document is written once but processed by many systems
> (write once, read many).  All those systems which process the document
> are shielded from the complexities of the schema.
> 
> [2] In the not-too-distant future there will be tools that read schema
> and provide a template for the instance document author to fill in.  The
> tool will understand the schema and shield the author from needing to
> understand the schema.
> 
> I hope that answers your concern satisfactorily Richard.  If anyone else
> has anything to add to this please join in.

I see your point, I just suspect that the tools that you mention would
do as good a job of shielding a document reader from explicit
namespacing as they would at shielding a document author from the
complexities of the schema.

-- 
Richard Lanyon (Software Engineer) |     "The medium is the message"
XML Script development,            |             - Marshall McLuhan
DecisionSoft Ltd.                  |