Re: [xml-dev] Data versioning strategy: address semantic, relationship,

["Stephen Green" <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

On 07/12/2007, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

> QUESTIONS
>
> a. Do you agree with the three categories of change?
>
> b. Do these categories represent all types of change?
>
> c. Do you agree that a versioning strategy must address semantic,
> relationship, and syntactic changes?
>
> /Roger
>


These are three categories which are acceptable in certain situations.
There are situations where these are not acceptable. If the semantics
were, say, legally binding (as with legally binding documents) it might
not be acceptable to change them. On the other hand there may be other
categories of change which are acceptable in other situations. So I
think there is always a problem with versioning - that it is a subject
where one size doesn't fit all. When we have looked at versioning for
XML business documents we have found that the requirements are so
strict and rigorous in comparison to other domains that the accepted
wisdom didn't really apply. This can be quite disheartening and baffling
but is largely due, I think, to over-simplification. It's not so much a
tutorial matter as a doctorate thesis matter. However, maybe these
three categories cover a certain area of requirements which can be quite
simply described so that they aren't seen as the whole picture and so
that folk using XML in areas out of scope to these categories don't
seriously underestimate the task they might have in hand. Given that, I
think they are a good fit for the average, innocuous, internal use of XML.

-- 
Stephen Green

Partner
SystML, http://www.systml.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 117 9541606

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