Re: [xml-dev] The illusion of simplicity and low cost in data designand

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> 
> I'm glad someone mentioned the old days of Mac OS, when files had a "resource fork" and a "data fork", the former containing anything you might want to know about the bits in the latter. In practice, most people said it was painful and awkward, but I never went to the mat with it myself so can't relay the details.

It was painful and awkward because they were simultaneously trying to make the system look like Unix, and when there's a poor fit between the data model and the API, the result is bound to be messy.

Michael Kay
Saxonica