Re: [xml-dev] Caught napping!

[Dan Weinreb <dlw@exceloncorp.com>]

   Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:08:28 -0800
   From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@rpbourret.com>

   "Seaborne, Mark" wrote:
   > >Ouch!!!!! A fact about XML structures today, is that they promote data
   > >redundancy.

   > Isn't this the kind of thing that xLink can be used for?

   It is. But if you fully normalize your data and then XLink everything
   together, you've just built a relational database, so why not just use
   one to start with?

(1) You don't have to flatten everything completely in order to avoid
redundancy (see my earlier mail).

(2) Maybe you want to be using XML documents for various reasons.
Consider the ebXML Collaboration Partner Agreement: it's a document
that spells out a business agreement between two partners.  We want it
to be a document, so that we can email it to each other, so that we
can both look at it in a text editor, and so on.  If the information
were stored in a relational database, it would not be as convenient
to transmit the data from one place to another nor to look at it.
(Nevertheless, once you have a CPA document, you might want to
store it in a database where it can be kept persistent, queried,
and so on.)