Re: What is the logic of storing XML in a Database?

On 2007-03-28, Marshall <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com> wrote:

>> There's also the niggling detail that the standard XML query language
>> can return different results depending on whether or not it's a schema-
>> aware implementation, and I can understand that that would make you
>> unhappy.
>>
>> But why would you be unhappy about XML as a transport format? It's
>> mostly an improvement over what we had before - CSV files, binary
>> formats, etc.
>
> Geeze, I'm tempted to flame, but you asked so reasonably, I'd
> be embarrassed if I did. (What is it about XML that drives so many
> to extremes, either pro or anti?)
>
> To answer:
>
> I'm an engineer, and I have deeply held engineer values. I value
> efficiency. I value simplicity. I value what Josh Bloch calls the
> "power-to-weight ratio" of a design: how much can you express
> vs. how much do you have to contend with to do it. Perhaps
> most of all, I value elegance, which is in part all of the above
> and in part an ineffable, aesthetic response.
>
> XML embodies the opposite of all of these virtues.

I often describe myself as an engineer. I'm always looking for an "elegant solution" too. But I'm basically in favour of XML because it rather elegantly solves some problems for me. I have a rather different view because these days I'm a long way from hands-on development work, except on my own supremely baroque projects. Perhaps it only seems simple because I allow the complicated stuff to whistle over my head.

>
> It is wasteful and verbose. It is wildly complicated, and
> worse, complicated in the face of a task that is fundamentally
> simple. It is confusing: XPath, XQuery, XSLT, etc. There are
> two different schema standard, DTD and XML-Schema. The
> man with one schema standard knows how to structure
> his data; the man with two knows nothing.

Like Topsy, it growed. It started out as an interchange format and did that tolerably well. Then new bells and whistles got added, and....

-- 
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In search of cognoscenti