Re: [xml-dev] Schema development for information design & authoring

["Eric Bréchemier" <eric.brechemier@gmail.com>]

  Hi Khaled,

On Jan 9, 2008 1:13 PM, Khaled Aly <ka.aly@luxsci.net> wrote:
>  Hello
>
>  With a more general modeling background in a number of other aspects, I'm a
> newcomer to "formal" information design and data modeling.
>
>  I'm interested in learning more about the business merit and application
> areas of schema development to the last. I could see that DTDs, and more
> recently RELAX NG and Schematron, are being used for industry standard
> XML-based authoring applications; but that's mostly a one-time per.

You forget XML Schema, which is, I would say, the actual de facto
standard today (like it or not...).

>
>  I'm wondering about the business case magnitude/significance of  schema
> development for purpose of information development & design, documentation,
> and content management.

Schemas have many usages, but based on my own experience, few
programmers define their own for the custom data they create. On the
other hand, we, in my previous company, relied heavily on schemas
created by standard organizations, mainly for validation and
documentation purpose, as well as efficient encoding of metadata (but
that's another story...).

>
>  Is it relatively true that the prominent merit is in the area of
> controlling data exchange for eCommerce and Web Services?
>
That would be fairly restrictive in my point of view. I think schemas
are useful to control data exchange between any data producer and
consumer. As an example, take a look at MusicXML for musical scores
and TV-Anytime for TV guides.

What is the more general background you are coming from by the way?
UML/MDA or E/R diagrams... ? You could say that XML Schemas (and DTD,
RELAX NG, Schematron) are much widely used for modeling than UML or
E/R when it comes to XML.

Of course, other people on this list are free to disagree :)

Cheers,

Eric Bréchemier

>  Thank you very much for any insight.
>
>  Regards.
>  Khaled
>
>