pcplantdb

["John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

I found the tree structure vs. relational structure info in that 'rant'
that RichardA posted very informative.  They're certainly very different
as to pros and cons.  Everyone here deserves to read that piece carefully
as we continue this conversation.

> An XML DTD is a good way to define a clean API.

Agreed.

> Hard to parse because there are cases where square brackets are used
> in a different context. Square brackets do not always indicate a book
> reference.

If we define square brackets to mean reference, that's what they mean.
This kine reference is regular and specific - not subject to much need for
extensibility.
Extensible is good where it's necessary.  It's expensive where it's not
necessary.

> Use square brackets and you must check all user input
> for validity.

Of course we are going to validate user input!  Except for free-form text
comments and similar stuff.
Or at least I am going to break things by being a bad naughty user who
tries to do all kinds of invalid stuff that should not be allowed.
Most users will be like that in the real world, even if they don't realize
it themselves.
Valid input is about the most basic DB requirement there is.
Garbage in, garbage out...

> Yep, the mapping from object <-> XML is pretty straightforward.
> You can take the view that XML is an effective method of serialising
> (storing/transmitting) objects.

Yeah, and at present I think it's hilarious or ironic or both that the
technology choice for the underlying DB has switched from object to
relational and at the same time y'all are now also jumping up and down
about XML, which as you say is more object-appropriate and according to
some is not a good thing to put inside an RDB.

Gonna be some interesting guacamole...

hi ho,
John S.


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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