RE: Proposal: a building block approach to XML design

["Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>]

Hi Folks,

A while back I read this in a book on functional programming:

    The functional programmer, then, should approach a new 
    application by seeking to identify the programming idioms 
    common in that application area, and to define them as 
    (probably higher order) functions. Each particular application 
    program should then be built by so far as possible combining 
    these functions, rather than writing new code. (Perhaps for this 
    reason, such functions are often called combinators). The 
    benefits of such an approach are very rapid programming, 
    once the library of idioms is defined, and very often that 
    application programs are correct first time, since they are 
    built by assembling correct components.

It occurs to me that this applies to data design as well -- identify the data idioms common in the application area.

Another name for "data idioms" is building blocks.

Thoughts?

/Roger