Re: [xml-dev] Argument: Software design is important, data design is not

[Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>]

* Costello, Roger L. wrote:
>In the final analysis what matters is giving consumers the information 
>they need in a form that is useful to them and performing the actions 
>they request. And it is software which does that. So it doesn't matter 
>whether you use a data format that is simple and lightweight, or complex 
>and heavyweight. In fact, the design of data to be exchanged matters 
>very little, as long as all the data that is needed exists.

A software salesman might tell that to potential customers, but when I
want to know, say, which international treaties have been ratified by
most members of the European Union at least one non-EU country, but have
not been ratified by the United States, then there is no software I know
of that gives me that information, and the needed data exists, but not
in a form that is easy to query as far as I am aware. Design software
all you want, at the current state of the art it is unreasonable to
think that the software will give a reasonable answer to the question
five years from now without maintenance.
-- 
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