Re: Are we losing out because of grammars?

[Eric van der Vlist <vdv@dyomedea.com>]

"Clark C. Evans" wrote:
> 
> Actually... I've found that I can't do anything without
> some sort of linking.  Even the most trivial timesheet
> example is a graph structure, else you have de-normalized
> the information.  Certainly if you do any relational database
> interaction you are definately in the world of graphs,
> partial information, and network databases.

"Links" are key for any information system and XML is no exception ! 

Without "links" (taken in the general meaning of the word) a RDBMS would
be nothing more than a set of spreadsheets.

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Practical ways to express links with XML is the subject of an article I
have written for XML.com [1] and of the tutorial I will be delivering at
WWW10, XML Europe 2001 and (if my submission is accepted) XTech 2001.
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> Perhaps Rick is on to something here.  Are we modeling the "parts"
> without looking at the "whole"?  Can one truely have a
> schema for a single document type?  Or must a schema necessarly
> model a set of inter-connected document types.

Yes, that would be really great to have schema languages that let you
describe the links within and also between documents.

XML Schema languages seem to focus on single documents and this looks
also like a necessary extension !

Eric
 
> By far the most interesting (and practical) thread in months,
> 
> Clark

[1] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/10/04/linking/index.html
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Eric van der Vlist       Dyomedea                    http://dyomedea.com
http://xmlfr.org         http://4xt.org              http://ducotede.com
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