Re: Alternatives to XML Schemas

[Rick Jelliffe <ricko@allette.com.au>]

> Unfortunately, there are many implementors who will heed your advice. I
have
> so far identified only a few implementations of XML Schema. Each is
focused
> on one very narrow use case (typically validation) and each supports only
a
> subset of the spec.

The reason why XML Schemas will initially be used for validation most is
because, until we get DOM and SAX APIs for the PSVI or XSLT 2 and XPath2
come along (for better or worse), all PSVI solutions are proprietary or
hidden inside an application and so invisible.

I would guess there will be three waves of XML Schemas adoption: first for
valiation (wave already broken), second for the generation of interfaces
(this wave is on fast apon us) and third for PSVI processing (only just on
the horizon, practically speaking, because the requirements are still being
gathered).  If your need is only for validation or the generation of
interfaces, then you will clearly have a different evaluation of the feature
set of XML Schemas than someone (assuming they actually exist :-) who needs
a PSVI (or if you could just as easily use the schema for providing type
information to queries rather than to the PSVI data itself.)

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe