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   Re: [xml-dev] W3C Schema: Resistance is Futile, says Don Box

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Hmmm.

On Mon, Jun 10, 2002 at 10:21:34AM -0600, Aaron Skonnard wrote:
>The fundamental problem is that we need to agree on a type system. The

No, we don't.

What is the function of typing in XML?

I would argue that the following is true, or functionally true:

In XML, typing specifies validation algorithms.

This is true for complex types (which are relatively uncontroversial, except
that some folks prefer DTD to specify, some prefer XSDL, and some prefer
Relax NG), and for simple types (which is increasingly controversial).

>next problem is that we have to decide via committee. As David Chappell
>recently said "only a committee is capable of deciding something that is
>dumber than any of its participants". What one group believes to be
>technically solid, another group will find technically weak. The
>situation has been the same with every Web-based technology including
>HTTP. The power is in compromise.

The power is in *flexibility* and *extensibility*.  If the only data types
in XML on which everyone can agree are "string" and "token", then define
those.  *And* define extension functions, extension hooks, to allow others
to define, for an application space, their own data type libraries. 
Encourage registration of data type libraries.

*Don't* tell me that there are forty-four built-in types, nineteen of them
"primitive," and no changes are allowed without a revision of the
specification.  Tfu.

The more I use the type collections collection in XSDL, the less I'm willing
to use it.  Granting that alternatives are currently *very* hard to find,
sometimes something is worse than nothing.

Amy!
-- 
Amelia A. Lewis       amyzing@talsever.com      alicorn@mindspring.com
So what is love then?  Is it dictated or chosen?  Does it sing like the 
hymns of a thousand years or is it just pop emotion?  And if it ever was 
here and it left does it mean it was never true?
                -- Emily Saliers




 

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