RE: Against the Grain: Pascal commentary about XML and databases

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

On 28 Jun 2001 17:44:06 -0400, Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com wrote:
> Hmmm. Mr. Pascal certainly has a rhetorical style that won't win him many
> friends, at least in the XML arena!  

He's been a relational purist since at least 1990:

"It is these misconceptions that inhibit users from appreciating and
demanding relational features in products.  They then do not put
sufficient pressure on vendors to implement them.   The end result is
that most PC products are either nonrelational or skimp on the support
of the relational features they do implement, even though they are
presented  as relational to users.  Consequently, users think the
products are relational and, when they do not detect significant
improvements, stop believing in the promises of the relational
approach."  (SQL and Relational Basics,  M&T Books: 1990.  p. 290)

I learned a lot from that book (it's one of the few 11-year-olds on my
computing bookshelf), and I've probably said things like that myself
regarding XML, but I'm not too worried about his critique of XML as a
data storage and management format.  He had strong opinions then, and
I'd be surprised if they changed that substantially now.

Simon St.Laurent