RE: [xml-dev] An alternative formulation of the document-centric/data-centric XML divide

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@intergraph.com>]

I always thought so, but I'm not so sure.  It is pretty easy to take an LSA record

and create an Illustrated Parts Breakdown.   It is hard to go in the other direction.

It is somewhat like treating time as a fourth dimension; it really isn't because it

isn't reversible except in simulation.   I can generate multiple representations

out of my schema database including ERDs and HTML tables.   It is fairly

straightforward to go from HTML tables back to relational tables, but not

so easy to go from the ERDs in VML back to relational tables.  

 

From <p> to <partno>, information is gained.  In the other direction, it is

lost.   How does your continuum hypothesis work with that?

 

As data is assembled into documents, it gains semantics.  So is the

DocTypeSpectrum a semantic continuum?

 

len

From: Bob Glushko [mailto:glushko@SIMS.Berkeley.EDU]

But I don't buy into this data-centric vs doc-centric view of the world. It is obviously a continuum   (called the "Document Type Spectrum" in the Document Engineering book  I'm writing with Tim McGrath [just about done, MIT Press early 2005]).   On one end are pure narrative things and on the other end are purely transactional ones:   Moby Dick to invoices.  IIn the middle are hybrid types like catalogs and reference books that have lots of structured content mixed in with narrative content.