Re: [xml-dev] XML Vocabulary Modeling

[Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@rpbourret.com>]

"Henry S. Thompson" wrote:

> I would urge a degree of caution here.  It is _possible_ to do your
> ontology at the same time you design your documents, but they _are_
> two different things.  XML Schema is about documents.  UML is, I
> presume, about ontology.  For small-scale and/or straightforward
> projects, you can get away with doing domain analysis [= ontology] and
> document design simultaneously, but only as long as you take careful
> note when the constraints of the XML tree-structure-with-links data
> model is in tension with the 'natural' domain ontology.

I agree. I haven't used UML, but suspect it is better than XML Schemas
for modeling data.

My best guess as to what's going on here is a bandwagon effect. XML has
got a lot of hype right now, so people see the world in terms of XML,
even if when that isn't the best solution.

-- Ron