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RE: [xml-dev] Caught napping!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Weinreb [mailto:dlw@exceloncorp.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 5:13 PM
> To: rpbourret@rpbourret.com
> Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Caught napping!
>
> Yes, but it also sometimes makes sense to use one when you're living
> and breathing XML everywhere already anyway, and it's just easier to
> deal with everything as XML.
Yup. The whole point of an XML database is *convenience* for those who are
immersed in the XML scheme of things; if you're immersed with pure abstract
"data" you probably want an RDBMS; if you're immersed in programming
objects, you probably want an OODBMS. Most of us are probably immersed in
all of the above, and have a job to figure out which is best <grin>
> All I mean is that XML documents, being documents, are convenient.
> You can read them into Emacs and gaze at them. I could put one
> into this very email so easily:
>
> <book>
> <title>Data and Reality</title>
> <author>William Kent</author>
> </book>
A more compelling example, if you don't mind my butting in, would be if you
wanted to exchange a list of various books by various authors, publishers,
etc. A normalization of this into authors, titles, publishers, etc. tables
would be far less intuitive to someone when opened up in emacs (if there
were a MIME type for tables!) or displayed in HTML than would a simple
hierarchical presentation. We're hard-wired to understand hierarchies, and
not hard-wired to do mental joins. More power to the smart people who CAN
see four tables and mentally join them into a booklist, but, ahem, good luck
selling that UI to Amazon!