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pop3 wrote:
> Unlike a printed page, an automated document, like any other automated
> data system, is dynamic and subject to change driven by external
> requirements that are by definition in flux. Assuming that a static
> state anywhere in the automated document process is acceptable is not
> valid IMHO.
Since XML is merely syntax, all these comments really concern either
heirachical databases or perhaps schema
languages for XML AFAIKS. (You can send relational data in tables using
XML, so it is utterly incorrect to
postulate that any property of relational system is impossible with XML.
Getting terminology correct is a good
place to start. That an XML document is an AVT with cross-links does not
mean that that XML document
necessarily contain a heirarchical database nor a relational database.
Nor, indeed, any kind of database--in the
sense of a collection of facts about things--at all.)
> Sure, you might be able to make it work today. Or even tomorrow. But
> working for 20 years, or longer, is not likely to be viable because
> the maintenance and additional work requirements are likely to change
> in as yet unknown ways, driving costs that can be shown to be at least
> linear and more likely exponentially increasing over time.
>
> That kind of outcome is precisely what TQM and then PE (process
> engineering) and now ISO 9000 and CMM have tried to avoid.
ISO 9000-3 Guidelines for applying ISO 9001 1994 to Computer Software
ISO 9001:1994 Model for quality assurance in design, development,
production, installation and servicing
ISO 9126:2000 Software Engineering: Product Quality
It is not correct to oppose dynamic process quality and dynamic process
quality in this way.
Indeed, ISO 9126 (which is concerned with quality as measurable at
particular instants)
specifically mentions in part 1, 1, note 3 "This ... can be used in
conjunction with ISO 9001
(which is concerned with quality assurance processes) to provide:
* support for setting quality goals
* support for design review, verification and validation."
The schema languages for XML provide clear support for many of the
requirements of
ISO 9000. For example, it clearly provides assistance for ISO 9001 s 4.4
Software development
and design, and s4.10 Product inspection and testing.
XML allows validation against evolving schemas. You can readily
determine whether a change
to a schema is backwards compatible against existing documents (i.e.
either because of the kind
of change, or by revalidating old documents). This fits in completely
with s4.20, Statistic
Techniques, which deals with metrics.
XML allows
verification/validation/mesaurement/expressing-of-customer-requirements,
and, at the system design level, XML's web/document orientation allows a
dataflow/routing
approach (e.g. SOAP) which entirely fits in with ISO 9001's requirement
for, e.g., remedial
systems as a separately considered part of the process.
I see XML validation as being *extremely* consistent with the ISO 9126
approach, b.t.w.
Cheers
Rick Jelliffe
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