Re: XML: The good, the bad, and the ugly

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message news:<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.

ah, you've been peeking. xml is bad for all uses except *some* transport. some OO factions (java in particular) took it up. xml is not especially OO.

  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

it isn't. lots of thoughtful people have explained why it is no more so than the tagged data files of the '60s. and yes, tagged data files go back that far. google is your friend.

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!

yeah. but you don't have to pay for DB2/oracle/etc. and the coders get to write more code. they like that.

BTDBB Received on Sat Sep 25 2004 - 04:02:42 CEST