[xquery-talk] Re: The State of Native XML databases

[Elliotte Harold]

John Snelson wrote:

> I think a strong argument could be made that a criteria for being a well 
> designed XML document is the ability to tell an element's type from it's 
> name - or at least from the path to it. This is why I said XML /could 
> be/ self describing.

I think a stronger argument can be made that the name is the type, and 
even better that the type is merely a projection of the application's 
type system onto the document. That is, an XML document has no 
fundamental types, and this is a feature, not a bug. Different 
applications may profitably choose to read the same XML document using 
different types. The document itself is neutral and should remain this way.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
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