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At 11:17 AM 6/6/2003 -0700, Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>Data-centric: The whole Schema crowd, who tend to see XML documents as
>equivalent to hierarchical databases
As opposed to the TEI crowd, who were intent on the use of XML documents to
represent literature used in the humanities. People like Michael
Sperberg-McQueen, for instance - who continues to teach seminars on TEI and
use of XML in the humanities, while serving as the chair of the W3C XML
Schema Working Group.
Or consider Henry Thompson, the main editor of W3C XML Schema Part 1, who
works with XML in the context of Computational Linguistics, Data-Intensive
Linguistics, Language Corpora and Corpus Management and Markup Architectures.
I consider W3C XML Schema too complex for its functionality, but the above
statement is really pretty ignorant.
Unless you mean it in the following way: any XML document can be processed
in ways that were once reserved for data stored in databases. For instance,
I can take Jon Bosak's marked up Shakespeare texts and start asking some of
the questions that might interest someone doing analysis of a play - using
queries that are reminiscent of database queries. Suppose I want to
understand how Lysander perceived Demetrius and Hermia in Midsummer's Night
Dream. I might do a query like this one:
for $s in document("theater/dream.xml")//SPEECH
where $s/SPEAKER="LYSANDER"
and contains($s/LINE, "Demetrius")
and contains($s/LINE, "Hermia")
return $s
And get results like these:
<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LYSANDER</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You have her father's love, Demetrius;</LINE>
<LINE>Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>
<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LYSANDER</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am, my lord, as well derived as he,</LINE>
<LINE>As well possess'd; my love is more than his;</LINE>
<LINE>My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,</LINE>
<LINE>If not with vantage, as Demetrius';</LINE>
<LINE>And, which is more than all these boasts can be,</LINE>
<LINE>I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:</LINE>
<LINE>Why should not I then prosecute my right?</LINE>
<LINE>Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,</LINE>
<LINE>Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,</LINE>
<LINE>And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,</LINE>
<LINE>Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,</LINE>
<LINE>Upon this spotted and inconstant man.</LINE>
</SPEECH>
<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LYSANDER</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will, my Hermia.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit HERMIA</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Helena, adieu:</LINE>
<LINE>As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!</LINE>
</SPEECH>
<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LYSANDER</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;</LINE>
<LINE>For you love Hermia; this you know I know:</LINE>
<LINE>And here, with all good will, with all my heart,</LINE>
<LINE>In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;</LINE>
<LINE>And yours of Helena to me bequeath,</LINE>
<LINE>Whom I do love and will do till my death.</LINE>
</SPEECH>
When I was majoring in medieval German literature, a set of marked up texts
with a language like XQuery would have been extremely helpful.
Jonathan
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