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- To: "Nathan Young" <natyoung@cisco.com>, "Roger L. Costello" <costello@mitre.org>, "XML Developers List" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
- Subject: RE: [xml-dev] A bunch of components, but no mandated organization - reasonable?
- From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>
- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:49:06 -0500
- Thread-index: AcT41mfKro3RSc1XT/mXC0WuwLS5xAAAEIng
- Thread-topic: [xml-dev] A bunch of components, but no mandated organization - reasonable?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nathan Young [mailto:natyoung@cisco.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:38 PM
> To: Roger L. Costello; 'XML Developers List'
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] A bunch of components, but no mandated
> organization - reasonable?
>
> Hi.
>
> > Suppose that:
> >
> > 1. There exist a collection of "components", and each component is
> > well-defined and understood.
> >
> > 2. There does NOT exist any rules which specify how the components
> > should be assembled.
>
> Either no relation exists between the information (and I
> don't think this is what you mean) or there are some rules
> relating the pieces of information and it boils down to
> questions about how to represent and communicate the relationships:
>
> - the document structure could imply information about the
> relationships of the
> information
> - a supplemental structured document could hold information
> about relationships
> (meta data)
> - your systems and my systems could both implement the same
> sets of rules about
> relationships
>
> In all three cases but especially in the third, some
> out-of-band communication is often needed to establish a
> working relationship where we agree on the meaning of
> components and their relationships.
Na ah - how about inference engines, acting on the information that is
semantically marked-up using RDF or OWL?
> > Can information be transmitted in a world where the building blocks
> > are understood, but no grammar exists?
>
> I'm not sure that I see a case where building blocks exist
> without a grammar. You always need rules to assemble the
> blocks, then rules to assemble the assemblies. The smaller
> you break the blocks up, the simpler the rules get, but you
> still need to express something about the information. You
> can mark it up or use a schema or tell me what it is over the
> phone or whatever.
> > Is a grammar necessary for information transfer?
>
> You certainly don't have to explicitly model every
> relationship that your recipient may be interested in.
> That's what queries (transforms) are often used for.
>
> > Consider XML Schemas. Suppose that:
> >
> > 1. An XML Schema declares a bunch of independent elements (i.e.,
> > components)
> > and each component is understood. For example, here's a
> Book component:
> >
> > <xsd:element name="Book">
> > <xsd:complexType>
> > <xsd:all>
> > <xsd:element name="Title" type="xsd:string"/>
> > <xsd:element name="Author" type="xsd:string"/>
> > <xsd:element name="Date" type="xsd:date"/>
> > <xsd:element name="ISBN" type="xsd:string"/>
> > <xsd:element name="Publisher" type="xsd:string"/>
> > </xsd:all>
> > </xsd:complexType>
> > </xsd:element>
> >
> > Here's a BookCover component:
> >
> > <xsd:element name="BookCover">
> > <xsd:complexType>
> > <xsd:choice>
> > <xsd:element
> > name="Hardcover"><xsd:complexType/></xsd:element>
> > <xsd:element
> > name="Softcover"><xsd:complexType/></xsd:element>
> > </xsd:choice>
> > </xsd:complexType>
> > </xsd:element>
> >
> > Everyone understands the meaning of each component in the Schema.
> >
> > 2. But there is no declaration tying the components together, e.g.,
> > there is no overarching element declaration that relates the Book
> > component with the BookCover component.
> >
> > If I create an XML instance document using the components
> and send the
> > instance document to you, will you be able to understand my data?
>
> If you are saying that the only way to have an agreement
> about this is to code it into the XSD then I'm not sure I
> agree. I do think you have demonstrated that it's possible
> to model books and cover types in a way that makes it
> unnaturally difficult to relate the two.
I think Roger is asking a much simpler question than that, which is can
the information be understood if there is no relation between the two.
If we are talking about machine-to-machine communication, I believe the
answer is yes - if, for instance, one uses xml:id's (which would not
involve an overarching element declaration, as Roger describes).
Kind Regards,
Joseph Chiusano
Booz Allen Hamilton
Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World
> -------->Nathan
>
>
> >
> > /Roger
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
>
> --
>
>
> .:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:._.:||:.
> _.:||:._.:||:.
>
> Nathan Young
> A: ncy1717
> E: natyoung@cisco.com
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org
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