XML: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 11:43:34 -0400
Message-ID: <042dnV7g9uRc3cncRVn-hg_at_comcast.com>
In one of the other discussions, XML was listed as one of the bad things perpetrated by the object oriented people. And I've seen a lot of discussion in here about using XML instead of a DBMS.
I've never had the opportunity to get up close and personal with XML. I went to a lecture on XML once, and my impression was... Neat! They've extended the concept of self-describing data to data in transit as well as data inside a DBMS. I'll confess that I never even thought of getting rid of the DBMS. After I've heard that idea, I'm puzzled.
If I compare XML to something like comma separated values, I think that XML is a good way of representing a wide variety of data. And I think it's a pretty good way of exchanging data, too, even if it isn't very concise. I imagine that you can make it more concise by defining a record type, and then supplying a stream of records, but that's more XML than I really know.
But XML instead of DBMS? The mind boggles. You have to be able to represent data in order to manage it. You have to be able to exchange data in order to manage it. And you have to be able to decode it. But that's just the beginning of data management. There's a whole lot more that a DBMS has to do, and it seems to me that XML doesn't even begin to address all the issues.
It would be like trying to put a capsule on the moon by using a baseball bat! Received on Fri Sep 24 2004 - 17:43:34 CEST