Re: GEDOM as a database format

Wes Groleau <groleau+news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:jGBMi.1175$P06.1062@trnddc05:

Tony Proctor wrote:
As a contrived illustration, consider some free-form notes that
wanted to reference a person's name, address during a particular
year, and the date they moved there:

<Person("Anthony Proctor")> lives in <Person("Tony
Proctor").Address("2007-10-01").Country> and moved there in
<Event("ProctorMove").Year>

All this sample serves to show is the generality of the use of a
mark-up language, and how those tags can generate both display text
(for reading) and a hyperlink to the associated in-memory object, or
to other references to it. What you see on the screen might be
simply:

Tony Proctor lives in Ireland and moved there in 2002

I and many others have thought about ways to tag words and phrases
in free-form text with XML tags and attributes to carry the linking
information. But as far as I know, none of us have ever actually
produced a working implementation.


Hi all. A quick background- I spent my life in the automotive industry, as
a tech as well as a technical training editor. My last 5 years were spent
trying to understand & use XML as it related to getting technical info in
this format and then publishing training course materials. I see a lot of
discussion about XML here, and wanted to share my thoughts about it. I see
XML as a complex subject, but usually misunderstood. I don't claim to
understand it completely myself, but what I have learned gives me a LOT of
respect for how brilliant it is in it's concept... simplicity and
flexibility.

The discussions I see here are similar to industry experience of having to
adopt XML when dealing with U.S. government processes & regulations that
require it. What it forces (in a nutshell) is one to think about what
information they deal with, from whom, and what they want to finally use it
for. It forces organization & categorization that isn't restrained by any
one use. It does it by the standardization of a)the raw data format (ASCII
text and use of "tags" <> and </> ) and b)a structure that requires the
definition of it's elements be shared (by a schema, or document
definition... the "rules").

I think that the key to using XML is to make sure that ALL of the data can
be "tagged" with at least enough structure that nothing can be "lost"
(unless someone wants to loose it!). What everyone struggles with is their
own "subset" of tag requirements, but usually there is enough agreement
among everyone about a core set of tags that everything will fit into.
That's where the beauty of XML and schemas come into play.. anyone can
define their own "tags" and even share them as long as they share their
"schema". You either use their schema, or you produce a subset that at
least conforms to the basic set of tags. In order to use data that is only
broadly defined & tagged, you need to then create your own schema, based on
your well thought out & DEFINED criteria. XML authoring, presentation and
storage software is designed to "force" your rules on the data set while
keeping the core tags and/or ensuring that your data can be "remapped" back
into the core set without loss.

What's being discussed are actually several "fine points", all of which are
a bit irrelevant to XML itself (ahh.. the beauty again!). Some are
discussing XML as a transport (which it can be called), some as a storage
method (which it can be), some as a language (which it can also be), some
as an organization structure (yup, that too). But really what it IS, is
meta-data.. literally data about data. Labels and attributes. A system to
attach labels and attributes to data, at their simplest as well as most
complex levels of use. If you don't categorize and use data like I do, then
at least we can share it if we both agree on it's most basic & common
meaning. Obviously if I spend time in refining my data in great details,
and you think it's just swell that way and saves you a lot of effort, then
I've already tagged it for you to use right out of the box. If not, you can
just use the data with my more broadly defined tags. You can even "remap"
my tags with your own schema and rules.

XML at LEAST provides a structure for sharing & understanding how someone's
data is organized, and allows for sharing it without loss or regard to how
someone else wants to use it.

Hee, hee.. the RULES. THAT's the hard part. XML is the easy, logical part.

(I think XML may be the key to the universe if we can only understand it,
rather than just use it) :-)
.

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