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On Saturday, October 26, 2002, at 08:24 PM, Paul Prescod wrote:
> tblanchard@mac.com wrote:
> It is not true that almost nobody can understand schemas/dtds. Sure,
> there are some complex corners of XSD but you can easily learn the
> _basics_ in a day, and thousands or tens of thousands of people have.
Clearly you have access to a much more talented pool of developers than
I do.
>> ... I'd quit bringing up the schema thing. I don't see it used much
>> at all (reading the list of "types" in schema I can see why). And
>> what's the benefit of having the schema machine readable?
>> Validation? It only provides syntactic validation. You still need
>> to do your own semantic validation.
> >
>> Schema value == 0.
>
> First, you just said that the schema does syntactic validation. So
> that means that the schema's value is greater than zero. It does
> something that otherwise _every implementor_ would have to do in code.
Sorry, that should have been NET value. I have yet to see a schema
developed before a sample document. I have seen them automatically
generated by tools. I also think XML Schema is overly complicated and
the likelihood of misunderstanding is high given the complexity level.
I mean, why is there short, long, int, and byte? Thats a physical
representation in what ought to be a logical description. Continued
reading of XML schema leaves me with a nasty taste. Clearly the
creators of this thing are C or Java programmers with limited
theoretical experience and no talent for real abstraction.
> Sixth, the existence of schema languages (and XML in general) puts
> pressure on vendors to open up and document their file formats. What
> was, historically, a moral obligation becomes also a technical one.
>
>> ...
>> Its still a dump of internal data. BTW, I see some ballyhooage about
>> MS using XML for Office. You know what MSXML looks like?
>> <data7>AB373947F879874983792283787AC5E</data7>
>
> Your theory is at odds with the reports of people who have reviewed
> the product and also at odds with the published claims of Microsoft.
My observation is based on the PList formats they store now. The
average app stores a few hundred kilobytes of preference data. MS
Awful stores tens of megabytes in PList format of the format A39F939302
= B9890982C3E3543...
Plus MS has a loooong history of screwing people with their file
formats and being something of a roach motel for data. Once in MS
format they make it difficult to get it out.
>> Or not. The preference is not. And I showed you the pointlessness
>> of XMLizing them. They did the XML to please the zealots.
>
> Or perhaps for compatibility with hundreds of software tools?
This "hundreds of tools" is every bit as compelling as the repeated
"thousands of programs" available to Windows users - but I notice you
mentioned you use a Mac. So clearly you're not swayed by quantity over
quality. The XML tools useful for editing PLists is basically zero.
PLists are a cheap and convenient data serialization format. Thats it.
The XML is strictly a fashion play. Like the porting of WebObjects to
Java. Which was also a move driven by fashion.
> Maybe it is all _you_ need. But I've been using schemas (was: DTDs)
> for more than eight years so please trust me when I say that _I_ need
> them.
Really?!?!!?! XML 1.0 first edition was published in 1998. Surely
DTD's don't predate that. So I'm not buying that statement either.
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