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9/30/2002 7:10:35 AM, Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@datadirect-technologies.com> wrote:
.
>
>I don't think simple data types are much of the cost or complexity. It's
>easy to argue that we don't need as many simple types as W3C XML Schema,
>and some of the date/time types are a real headache - in particular, trying
>to specify how time zones are handled in all applications may be causing
>much more complexity than it is worth. Does anyone remember which
>mathematician said something along the lines of, "God created the integer,
>all the rest is the work of mankind"? The most basic data types probably
>give the most bang for the buck.
I agree. It makes sense to be able to identify "NumChildren" or whatever
as an integer for database purposes. It make less *practical* sense to identify
"employee" or whatever as a complex type for run-time validation purposes.
The question, of course, is "what are the most basic data types"?
My quarrel is not at all with those who defined W3C XSDL, with the but idea that
one can go far enough at runtime with WXS-based "contracts" to make rejecting
a message/document based on syntactical validation a Good Thing. It might well
be a useful check to see if the data appear to be "clean", it is surely
useful as a concise way of defining the preferred syntax, or as an
XML database schema language, no question. My impression, however,
is that most actual users of XML databases generally use fairly open
content models; after all, the principal use case for XML databaess
is for data that doesn't easily fit the rigid constraints of SQL tables.
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