RE: [xml-dev] Better design: "flatter is better" or "nesting is better" ?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@intergraph.com>]

Although putting the XML into a text field is still a common technique.  Doc mgt on the cheap.

We use HTML for templates in Notes fields.  It is easy and the user can modify it 

without too much effort or depth.

 

OTOH, grandfathering HTML is still haunting us for reasons we all know about.

 

Where markup goes wrong in these situations is that it is all too easy for the user or an 

XML-unaware process to muck it up with the usual results (a downstream processor halts

and catches fire). 

 

Have you ever tried to show XML comments in Powerpoint?  OpenDoc's best assault on Office will

be proper handling and display of XML constructs.

 

len

From: Anne Thomas Manes [mailto:atmanes@gmail.com]

Perhaps "storage" is the wrong word, because it implies persistence to some type of data store, but the basic concept is valid. Either the XML is persistent or it is transient. If the XML is persistent, then the application works directly on the XML. If the XML is transient, then the XML is transformed into some other format (language objects, relational database, etc.) that the application works with.