Re: [xml-dev] XML Schema: "Best used with the ______ tool"

["James Fuller" <james.fuller.2007@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:23 AM, Boris Kolpackov <boris@codesynthesis.com> wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> writes:
>
>> One other observation on this "benchmark":
>>
>> > Note how in the XQuery case I had to invent a delimiter (':')
>> > for the first, last, and age fields so that I could pass them
>> > as a string from XQuery to the programming language. I then
>> > had to manually parse this string and convert the age field
>> > to unsigned short. To me, this doesn't look easier than data
>> > binding at all.
>>
>> The idea I'm pushing is that you write the application end-to-end using
>> XML-based languages.
>
> That only works if all your inputs and outputs are in XML. In most
> real-world situations this won't be the case (I think by now people
> realize that XML is not a silver bullet but merely a data format that
> is ill-suited for many applications).

paraphrasing/borrowing from Churchill -- 'yes XML is the worst form of
data format, except all those other forms that have been tried.'

It is a fact that most errors in most forms of programming typically
occur wherever you are marshaling from one format to another (like
serializing objects). Also whenever there is a change in data
structure, this code tends to get revisited time and time again.

Having data be able to exist in code, in long term persistence and
over the wire in the same format has some pretty compelling effects,
though admittedly to the detriment of the format being specifically
good at any one thing; the upshot is that XML is a general data format
so whats your point ?

cheers, Jim Fuller