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Data fusion is a given in my view so I forget to mention it explicitly when I talk about why having XML Everywhere is so cool. With most documents on my file system, data in my database, web documents and messages on the wire exposable as XML infosets in a few years [if the current trend continues] a data head like me looks forward to "Unified Query".
Every other day, I wish I had a single environment or language I could do things like merge data from Excel spreadsheets and web pages with minimal hassle. Given XSLT, Excel's XMLSS[0], and tidy's -asxml option I can do things like that today with a lot off hassle. Thus I consider the proliferation of XML infosets and the existence of XQuery as two very exciting developments in the XML world.
[0] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnexcl2k2/html/odc_xlsmlinss.asp
________________________________
From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@ingr.com]
Sent: Tue 2/18/2003 11:04 AM
To: Dare Obasanjo; David Megginson; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] Remembering the original XML vision
So data fusion doesn't excite you? I'm surprised
by that but OK.
Is there an original vision for XML?
Not really. There are as David said, bug fixes
to SGML to make the old vision possible faster. That
vision included the capability to use documents as
first-class data sources. Why?
1. No need to reinput the information into
relational databases. Awkward and expensive.
2. Freezing a document at a state of production
and using it as a record of authority with scope
over other transactions (meaning, it becomes
policy or contracted-authority). Keep
in mind, one cannot transform a record of
authority without provable reversibility.
3. Reusing parts of that document in other
documents that also become data sources. Keep
in mind this isn't cut and paste, but direct
inclusion while maintaining a consistent look
and feel for the including document.
I'm not that excited by XForms-like technologies
if all I get is yet another GUI. I need the
ability to integrate data sources and orchestrate
workflow. We need for documents in their original
or published/late-bound forms, the ODBC for documents.
Is that DOM? Can one realistically do that
without XML Schema or its analogs? Can one
do that without XQuery or its analogs?
len
From: Dare Obasanjo [mailto:dareo@microsoft.com]
Others have already pointed out the benefits of documents being in for workflow and the like. I'm just excited about being able to use Word as I have in the past to do things like write my monthly columns or API specs but for it all to be saved as my custom XML format.
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