Re: [xml-dev] SQL 2k or XML?

[Mike Champion <mc@xegesis.org>]

8/13/2002 9:14:43 AM, "Falls, Travis D (CASD, IT)" <Travis.Falls@thehartford.com> wrote:

>I am designing a site in asp.net (VB.net), and I am storing bios for bands,
>with one picture, shopping personal information on the subscribers of the
>site, songs (MP3) and a few other things that I can't think of.  I am at a
>loss though in designing it though, I don't know if I should store the info
>in XML files and then put meta data in the database, or put everything in a
>sql base, ect any suggestions for designing a site in this fashion is
>greatly appreciated.

There was a long thread on when it makes more sense to use XML vs a SQL
database last October or so.  Leigh Dodds wrote it up for XML.com at
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/10/24/follow-yr-nose.html and I'm
sure it was also covered in his Eclectic weblog.  Both should
have links back to the specific postings.

Basically,  the whole point of XML is interoperability
with other systems.  If your other applications grok SQL, or
SQL server groks your other applications, go for it.  If there are 
relevant standards or XML enabled tools that make your life easier,
go the XML route. The true beauty of XML, IMHO, is that you don't
HAVE to distinguish between "data" and "metadata" at design time ... but
of course that only works if your "data" is XML.  If your data is mostly
non-XML and the metadata is easily stored in an RDBMS, I can't think of
too many reasons to use XML, again unless the metadata will be exchanged
with other sites and you need a neutral format.

The "a few other things that I can't think of" might be a warning that
you need to keep "schema evolution" in mind.  In general, XML systems
(or at least XML systems that don't go overboard on strong typing) 
are more tolerant to change than RDBMS systems, but this may not be
a problem if you have relatively few tables and few dependencies 
betweeen them.