Re: [xml-dev] XML is Like a Box of Chocolates

[Jim Melton <jim.melton@oracle.com>]

Peter, Roger, et al,

At 3/4/2012 11:27 AM, Peter Flynn wrote:
>On 04/03/12 14:05, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
>...
>
>By the same token, be careful that you don't fail to assign meaning
>explicitly where it is needed. The <title> element as the first child of
>a <chapter> element is important (the clue is in the name "title").

And therein lies extreme danger.  I, like (one would hope) most XML 
vocabulary designers, specify element names and attribute names that 
are somehow mnemonic to their intended usage.

However, as a document author, not to mention the author of tools 
intended to process XML that uses such a vocabulary, I MUST NOT go by 
intuition to decide how to mark up my document or how to process 
documents.  I MUST know the vocabulary designer's intended meaning or 
I'm likely to screw things up royally.  Element names might be 
"clues", but they are not "proof" of anything.

(For example: Is a book "title" 'the same as' a person's "title"?  Is 
it 'the same as' the "title" to a piece of property -- real estate, 
vehicle, etc.?  Is it always a noun, or sometimes a verb, or even an 
adjective -- when used in those different ways, the structure 
[attributes, children] might be different and the processing is 
almost certainly different.)

Hope this helps,
    Jim

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Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL)     Phone: +1.801.942.0144
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