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Re: RELAX NG and W3C XML Schema
At 08:37 AM 6/7/2002 -0700, Eric Sedlar wrote:
* XML Schema was developed as a compromise between the data-oriented
people (like Oracle) and the document-oriented people. It has some of the
problems that occur when things are designed by committee to meet the
needs of multiple constituencies. However, that's also why it has a lot
more market acceptance.
>
My contention would be that Schema is too feature-rich for version 1.0,
not too feature-poor, which is what James suggests. While I would be
very happy not to have to implement redefine or key/keyref in Schema,
those features were put in SPECIFICALLY TO MAXIMIZE MARKET ACCEPTANCE.
I would hope that the IETF could look past claims from vendors and
organizations who piled half-coherent features into a specification to
create an enormously overgrown check list of odd bits and pieces that could
be sold to a public supposedly more interested in the parts than in the whole.
It seems that XML Schema is chock-full of "features" (gMonthDay, etc.) that
were seen as "maximizing market acceptance", but painfully short of
features (support for a wide variety of element and attribute structures,
useful mixed content declarations, implementation simplicity, general
clarity) which might have produced a flexible, nimble, and coherent
specification.
I don't believe that "XML Schema is a better language for IETF standards"
under any circumstances, even accounting for W3C XML Schema's more explicit
attempt to be a data-oriented language. I'm afraid that greater market
acceptance and work on optimizing an initially grotesque set of structures
doesn't seem likely to produce better technical results than a
specification with a clean formal base and an accessible notation.
Privileging a specfication whose creators are selling it without much
regard for its overall quality does not seem prudent. Scott Hollenbeck's
latest proposal appears to address this situation very well, avoiding
privilege issues altogether while still discussing what these tools have to
offer.
Simon St.Laurent
"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue