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

["Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Lowery [mailto:jlowery@scenicsoft.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 2:36 PM
> To: 'Champion, Mike'; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: RE: [xml-dev] XML Database Decision Tree?
> 
> 
> The same sorts of arguements are given for object-oriented 
> programming. OO programming *is* conceptually easier at first blush, but
once 
> you get into domains of sufficient complexity, 
> OO modelling gets very hard indeed.

That's an awfully good point.  I was just bitten by the "simple for simple
things, nightmarish for hard things" syndrome (in another context) and I'm
expecially receptive to that argument today.  

To summarize ...

IF your data are for a complex, mission-critical application, you owe it to
your customers, stockholders, and career to do a serious, professional
design and at least consider evaluate an RDBMS for storage. IF you are
prototyping an XML application, building a "document" application that is
not susceptible to "data" oriented design methodologies, or just
logging/cacheing XML data and a design would be overkill,  a native XML
database will probably be more cost-effective than building an RDBMS
application.