RE: Personal reply to Edd Dumbill's XML Hack Article wrt W3C XML Schema

[Matthew Gertner <matthew.gertner@schemantix.com>]

> I wonder if I have been clear ;=) ...
> 
> By specifying the data types in the instance, I wasn't thinking to ask
> the users to type it (except, maybe in very specific cases, but it's
> already possible using a xsi:type attribute), but rather defining the
> validation process as a transformation that would add this 
> information's
> as attributes (or elements).

Okay, now that I understand what you are talking about, I still disagree,
but less passionately. :-) Sure, that's a neat idea. We actually use
something quite similar in our products. The only remaining point of
contention for me is the statement that data types can vary for the same
element types for the same instances (i.e. by attaching the instance to
multiple schemas). This becomes closer to a personally held opinion that a
universal truth, however. In my view, information architectures based on XML
will be driven by XML schemas (hence the bean example in my last post). A
given schema tells you how to process a given class of instances, so you
have to have a single schema for a given instance. This seems emminently
logical to me, but I'd be curious to hear some justification for the
opposite view.

Matt