Re: [xml-dev] The triples datamodel -- was Re: [xml-dev] Semantic Web permathread, iteration n+1

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

At 11:00 PM +0200 6/7/04, Henrik Martensson wrote:

>What would you have done if you had to deal with information from fifty
>different sites, and all fifty made their own, frequently incompatible,
>changes? (This is a far more common situation in my line of work than
>having to deal with only one data provider.)
>
>Writing fifty different XSLT stylesheets does not sound like a good
>solution.

It's easier than getting 50 different organizations to agree, and 
then to conform to that agreement. 50 different stylesheets is not 
that hard, especially when most of them are likely to be simple 
variations of each other. I can easily write 50 stylesheets in 50 
days, probably less. I'd be very surprised if 50 companies could 
agree to anything in 50 days.

>For me it is different. I work with fairly large companies. The data
>providers are either departments or subcontractor. In such situations,
>trying to adapt to everyone else simply does not work.

Why not? Have you tried it and watched it fail? If so, please do 
elaborate on your experience. If you'd like I can probably get you a 
slot at SD 2005 West to talk about it. (They love case studies.) But 
like extreme programming, nobody believes this approach can possibly 
work, until they try it and see that it does. And then they can 
hardly believe they ever did it any other way.
-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   elharo@metalab.unc.edu
   Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA