A few things I noticed about w3c's xml-schema

[Murali Mani <mani@CS.UCLA.EDU>]

Hi,

I was travelling slightly and also trying to get some work done outside
xml-dev, so if any delay in responses, please accept my apologies.

I recently attended a DB conference, and there were definitely some
interesting talks related to XML, and i would like to summarize a few that
i could grasp for those who were interested -- the conference i attended
was ACM's SIGMOD/PODS, with the WebDB workshop held in conjunction.

The most interesting talks I believe were related to what is the best way
of storing XML -- in traditional DBs or as tradition information retrieval
structures like inverted lists -- i am sorry, but i think there are
vociferous claims by both parties, i do not know even the basics, but i
would summarize it as it purely depends on whether the application needs
heavyweight transactions. And those who are enthusiastic about XML, I
think this is fairly true (my own conclusions) -- xml schemas (definitely
*not* the one from w3c) will be used as the model in which the users will
interact with the system, i think most of the stuff about relational views
though will go on in the back ground and will be known to the people who
develop the system, will not be visible to the end user.

Another very interesting talk was the talk on why RELAX by Makoto Murata,
this was an invited talk at WebDB -- it was very interesting, and i am
*extremely* grateful to Makoto Murata and James Clark for deciding to come
out when mistakes started proliferating in the XML-Schema WG, and have
exploded to an uncontrollable manner -- i am sorry if i hurt anyone's
feelings.

to give an analogy, approaching from closure properties, and doing a bit
of philosophisation -- I believe strongly that man from the time he was
created has *always* come up with closed systems. Coming up with a
technology that does not obey closure properties, I think, has the analogy
of humans mating and coming up with a dog as their progeny. And what the
XML-Schema WG is trying to do is in stead of making amends, they are
trying to cut off the various parts of the dog like the limbs, and finally
presenting to the end-user a pound of flesh, and putting up the entire
false show that this is the solution.

Also, there was a panel discussion, where someone mentioned that xml
industry is a 10 billion dollar industry. I sincerely wish the xml-schema
WG the very best of luck that they will be able to do this cover-up for
less than a billion dollars. I think it will be good if they actually
listen at least now to what the real founders of XML have to say -- these
are people who have worked on XML way before anyone has even heard of it,
and they have worked on almost all problems including document
transformations and so on. I think the respect for people is going down,
because of some false shows by some people -- they will not sustain for
long.

also once more, i am sincerely apologetic for hurting the sentiments of
anyone.

regards - murali.