xml-dev - XML Schemas: even more complex than Java

[Arnaud Sahuguet <sahuguet@gradient.cis.upenn.edu>]

If you read carefully the latest XML-Schema spec,
you will notice that some newly added features look
suspiciously like features borrowed from Java-like programming
languages.

Sometimes, I really wonder if some members of the working group were not
pushing
for these features because they had a working implementation of XML
Schemas that was using them internally.

For instance, you have abstract elements (that cannot be instanciated),
final elements (that cannot be extended), to name a few.

The entire spec is now much more complex that the Java spec itself and
much harder to read.
And there are some new features (some of them useful) that are not
common in programming languages, like derivation by restriction.
Does it have to be this way?
Is it the best way to make XML available to a large number of
(non-programmer) people?

If the schema language has to be as complex as Java, why don't we use
Java itself or something like Corba IDL, ODMG ODL or UML? One thing that
is definitely not captured by these frameworks is order, but this could
be added.

Arnaud

PS: At least for Java, there is a reference book (Java Language
Specification, by Gosling-Steele-Joy) that explains clearly what the
language is all about.