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At 02:51 PM 12/4/2002 -0500, W. E. Perry wrote:
>Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
> > But I don't yet understand how the presence of a datatype can make
> reuse more
> > difficult - except, perhaps, by requiring a cast. Can you help me with a
> > concrete example or two?
>
>Jonathan, I think you know that this question is ignoring my larger query--the
>point which IMHO goes to the heart of what you are asking--which is whether
>datatypes inhere in the representation of data (or in something like the terms
>of Uche's article, whether class is intrinsic (the divine right of kings?)).
I don't really understand your larger query. I'm pretty sure it's different
from the question I was asking. How do I know whether datatypes inhere or not?
>Nevertheless, since you ask for angle brackets, here is a snippet from my
>morning's work:
>
><PLO021204>
><C37042GHW9>S5M</C37042GHW9>
></PLO021204>
>
>This is actually an order to sell $5000 face of some notes.
[[[ !!! SNIP !!! ]]]
>However, the contractor for whom I am handling this
>document cares only that this is one part of a larger order ('PLO') in the
>day's trading. That contractor's job is to keep track of how many PLO pieces
>are processed for each order in a given day--and the definition of what is a
>given order depends on how many pieces there are. The process operated by that
>contractor is specialized for, and understands only how to aggregate the
>pieces
>into an order, and what the definition of an order is, based on how the
>(potential) pieces of it are actually handled in the course of a day's
>trading.
So you want me to get all of the elements whose names start with "PLO",
without paying attention to the datatype, and put it onto an order? In XQuery:
<order>
{
input()//*[starts-with(local-name(.), "PLO")]
}
</order>
That works the same way with or without datatypes in the data.
Or is there a different task that you want me to perform? Give me a
concrete task, and lets see whether the presence or absence of datatypes
interferes with the task.
>The software which will be used against this document understands *nothing* of
>the document's content, as that content would be understood in datatyping it
>for processing this document as an order. This means that you are asking my
>contractor to implement an understanding of order content--as opposed to order
>form--in his software, just so that he will be able to understand the
>datatyping of content, in order ultimately to know that such content,
>datatyped
>or not, is of no use to him and will be thrown away unused. In other
>words, you
>want me to demand an understanding in my software of what by definition of its
>function it will never use.
I don't know why you would use datatypes with this particular data, since
S5M does not seem to be a value for any numeric datatype in XML Schema. But
their presence or absence doesn't really change the query I gave above. Can
you describe some queries you think might be hard if datatypes are present?
Jonathan
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