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Hi Mike,
Mike said:
> Anyway, get with the program! XML ain't about angle brackets any more,
it's
> about Information Items [duck]
Didier replies:
Yes, it seems that we are moving toward greater more abstract entities like
information elements or like Rick[1] said a couple years ago "information
units". We where using this concept in the early days of MCF[2] where each
object was treated as an information unit.
Ex:
unit: object1
attribute1: value 1
attrinute2: value2
etc...
Also, it seems that there are different patterns for system integration:
a) integration through function calls
b) integration through data
I think we are witnesses of the clash between these two patterns. In case
(b) xml is not well integrated as a language type and (b) seems to be the
remedy (using function calls instead of data types) but with the conterpart
of not seeing the XML anymore (in addition to other secondary effects
already mentionned in this list). In case (a) we have direct contact with an
XML format but its underlying data structure is accessed as an external
entity not as a direct data type. Moreover, in (a) all semantics is lost in
the process since the procedural language is dealing with elements and
attributes instead of concrete objects like accounts, clients or whatever
expressed as variables. If anybody resolve the impedence mismatch in a
language like, for instance, in Java and provide access to the semantics
entities instead of the generic abstraction of the DOM maybe the average
developer would be more inclined to expreiment with integration through data
intead of integration through function calls.
Anyway, I can say too that this thread helped me increase my understanding
of the problem from both sides of the fence.
[2] The XML and SGML Cookbook (Recipes for structured information) Rick
Jelliffe.
[1] RDF ancestor, created during the Apple's Project X
cheers
Didier PH Martin
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