RE: [xml-dev] XML Data Modellling/Linking (was RE: [xml-dev] After XQuery, are we done?)

["Hunsberger, Peter" <Peter.Hunsberger@STJUDE.ORG>]

Michael Kay <michael.h.kay@ntlworld.com> writes:

> > 
> >          The problem with the XML aficionado view of data
> > modelling is that 
> > it doesn't take authors into account. I may have a specific 
> > reason when 
> > authoring content to want a link to appear in a certain way, 
> > but I may have 
> > no skill or ability to write the stylesheet that makes sure 
> > that happens. I 
> > need to know how to write my tag to specify the linking 
> > behavior I want.
> 
> You're taking a document perspective, and you're probably 
> right that in the
> document world, one is talking about people communicating 
> with people, and
> this makes it difficult to divorce structure from 
> presentation entirely. I
> think this applies to the whole markup space and is not 
> unique to linking.
> 
> But XML is about abstracting away from the presentation as much as one
> possibly can, and to my mind XLink doesn't do that.
> 
> Part of the problem, I think, is the focus on URIs as identifiers (and
> links). I've heard a number of talks recently advocating that 
> we should use
> URIs whenever we want to identify anything, and I simply 
> don't think that's
> the right direction. To my mind <postcode>RG4 7BS</postcode> 
> is a perfectly
> good identifier (for a small piece of geography in which my 
> house is found),
> and any technology that requires me to write it differently 
> if I'm going to
> use it for linking purposes is too constraining.
> 
> Even in the document world, authors should be encouraged to write
> <postcode>RG4 7BS</postcode> without too much thought about 
> the fact that in
> one particular application, hovering the mouse over it might 
> show you a map.
 
I think that answers some of my previous questions to you and meshes up
with what I just posted to Bob.  So, if I've got this right what you're
really looking for is some nice standard way of identifying that
<postcode>RG4 7BS</postcode> is in fact an identifier and for what
domain?  

Presumably a pointer to some ontology that can be queried via some
convoluted WS spec. isn't the way to go. However, if instead you use a
REST XML interaction (GET on some xQueryX perhaps?) haven't you just
aliased some URI to <postcode>RG4 7BS<postcode/> (albiet with a level of
indirection that might have some interesting capabilities)?