Re: [xml-dev] XML Database Decision Tree?

[bob mcwhirter <bob@werken.com>]

> > My larger point (as a couple of people have picked up on) was that most DB
> > developers do not control their own destiny with respect to schemas -- they
> > store the data someone tells them to store, and if the schema changes, they
> > deal with it.  Native XML DBMS developers will spend a lot fewer nights and
> > weekends "dealing with it" than those trying to store evolving XML schema in
> > an RDBMS.
> 
> I'm also having a hard time buying this argument. All you're saying is
> that there is no bureaucracy (yet) in place to control the contents of
> the native XML database. This is similar to what happened with
> spreadsheets when they first came out -- people got control of their own
> data and the DBAs lost out.
> 
> If this represents a true political change on the part of corporations,
> fair and good. Native XML databases can take credit as the agents of
> change, although it's not clear that their technology had as much to do
> with it as their newness made it possible to slip in under the radar.

As with Object Databases, there isn't really a DBA in an ivory tower
who controls the schema.  They are effectively just an extension of
the development environment.  Part of my 'make' process blows the
schema of freshly created objects into the ODBMS.

One of the reasons I like using ODBMS is the fact I don't have to
block on a read while a DBA gets around to manipulating the schema.

> That wasn't the disastrous I was referring to. The "disastrous" I meant
> was when one group starts storing data in a way that it is very
> difficult for another group to use. Somebody has to mediate this
> process, whether it's DBAs, developers, or your Aunt Sarah's Ouija
> board. Failing to do so will cause problems down the road. Doing so will
> reduce the flexibility of native XML databases, although for political
> reasons, not technical reasons.

Here, I think XML Databases live somewhere between ODBMS and RDBMS.
At least in my world, the ODBMS was pretty much restricted to being
used by the application that created it.  RDBMS attempt to be usable
by lots of applications.  XDBS live in the middle, probably initially
for a particular application, but since it's XML, it's expected to be
re-usable by many others.

	-bob