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Len wrote:
...
> Is there a confusion between loose coupling
> as an API/data model and loose coupling as file
> types on the wire? While both are viable, I
> wonder if we would have the same confusion if
> the InfoSet were taught before the syntax.
It's interesting you say that. Back when we first started teaching our
first XML courses at DevelopMentor, we started with the Infoset as the
foundation followed by serialization at a later point. We found that the
approach actually confused more developers than it helped and generally
got the course off to a bumpy start. Since then, we've applied the
"start concrete, move abstract" approach, which seems much easier for
developers to grok. This seems true for most technologies, actually, not
just XML.
What really seems to help developers appreciate the difference between
these coupling models are good examples of "XML providers" where there
are no angle brackets involved. I've written several in .NET that expose
the file system, registry, zip files, dlls/exes, etc, as logical XML
documents. Then you can write XPath expressions that looks like this:
/mycomputer/c/temp//samples/book.zip/chapter1.doc
/mycomputer/c/invoices/invoice.xml[sum(//price)>1000]/@ID
Obviously, these XML providers not only give you XPath and XSLT
integration but also integration with .NET's DOM implementation.
Along these same lines, the built-in SQL Server 2000 XPath integration
is another great example that illustrates the concept.
--
Aaron Skonnard <http://skonnard.com>, DevelopMentor <http://develop.com>
Essential XML Quick Reference available online in PDF format...
<http://develop.com/books>
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