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

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@comcast.net>]

Henrik Martensson wrote:

> On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 20:19, Thomas B. Passin wrote:
> 
>>Better to be good at xslt!
> 
> 
> 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 sounds pretty good to me, if I don't have a way to arrange for all of 
them to supply the same format.

> I can understand your reluctance to require that the data provider
> conforms to a particular schema when you are dependent on them, instead
> of the other way around.

It wasn't our reluctance, but the near (or total) impossibility.  But 
note that in this case, unlike the second vignette I posted, we were 
working to a schema, in fact, two of them - theirs and ours.  The fact 
that their schema itself had some technical errors that I had to correct 
(and informed them about), and that it was a little out of sync with the 
actual delivered format, tells me that they did not have a complete 
process in place for managing quality control.  And this is not unusual.

Here's the thing ... there is no one solution because all the cases are 
different.  XML has a remarkable ability to cope with so many of these 
environments, which is perhaps one reason it has insinuated itself into 
so many places.  In a case where there is a closely connected team, and 
all parties can be forced or pursuaded to use a given schema, you may be 
able to achieve everybody's conformance.

Other cases are more Walter Perry-ish, and that approach is not an 
option no matter how desirable it would be.  And there are all degrees 
in between.


Cheers,

Tom P

-- 
Thomas B. Passin
Explorer's Guide the the Semantic Web (Manning Books)
http://www.manning.com/catalog/view.php?book=passin