RE: [xml-dev] After XQuery, are we done?

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

Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@rbii.com> writes:
> 
> On Oct 25, 2004, at 11:06 AM, Hunsberger, Peter wrote:
> 
> > <opinion type="myopic mathematical bias">
> >
> > The way I see it, the real question in this thread is how 
> do we move 
> > from exchanging limited hierarchical models represented in 
> XML towards 
> > exchanging some more universal graph representations?
> >
> > </opinion>
> 
> A more important question, which gets to the heart of the matter, is 
> who decides what is a graph, what is a tree, and by what 
> means do they 
> make the interpretation? 

I don't get the distinction.  As soon as you've got a graph you've got a
tree (or perhaps many trees).

> I think this was probably the point Michael 
> Kay was making.
> 
> I've seen all kinds of data, including graphs, encoded in 
> XML, just as 
> I have seen such data structures encoded in ASCII.

Sure, but with an XML representation of a graph you're back to the
application to parse the XML serialization into a graph. You haven't
exchanged a graph, you've exchanged something that, given enough extra
knowledge, someone else might be able to build a graph out of.