Re: Development Trends in Web and Oracle

"DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:1110725887.567787_at_yasure...

> You are, however, pushing all of that verbosity across a copper wire,
> multiple times, and it hurts.

I agree it is a tradeoff. But it isn't as bad at first glance as you might think Including the other benefits highlighted during the thread, and the disadvantages, perhaps something not addressed so far is the number of round trips between a middleware process and the database.

The following example is contrived, full of holes, but does serve to neatly demonstrate a round trip argument. I believe these two scenarios are not atypical.

When a bit of schema valid XML is inserted into a table for example, the XML as a single payload can be shunted down the pipe once (for example, company name, ID, director 1, director 2, director 3). In the database it can be stored schema validated and structured (eg. XMLTYPE schema validation on the column) but need not be. The XML as everyone has pointed out is verbose and there are probably additional transport and lexing/parsing costs server side over and above the relational model.

Should the same information be inserted into tables in a multitable relational system, you might find one round trip to populate the company name and id, then (3) further round trips to perform inserts into the directors table once for each of director 1, director 2, and director 3. This is 4 round trips between the database and middleware. This could be argued expensive and an unnecessary overhead too.

>
> You are still working hard to miss the target.
>

Not at all. This thread has been beneficial in really making me think about using a XML aware database for the storage and manipulation of XML. It has also reinforced some correct and incorrect perceptions people have of XMLDB, including myself. It is a discussion - exploration of peoples views. I am not attempting to swing or force technology views on anyone, just accepting XML in a database as a technology for what it is from an informed perspective without dismissal or acceptance on unsubstantiated grounds.

Hex

"DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:1110725887.567787_at_yasure...
> Hexathioorthooxalate wrote:
>
>> Yes, XML is verbose. I agree. But remember you are not storing this
>> verbosity. You
>> are NOT storing redundant data. You are not storing zillions of copies of
>> tag information. Get it! This argument is just plain wrong
>
> You are still working hard to miss the target.
>
> You are, however, pushing all of that verbosity across a copper wire,
> multiple times, and it hurts.
> --
> Daniel A. Morgan
> University of Washington
> damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
> (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)
Received on Sun Mar 13 2005 - 10:00:06 CST