Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
You can buy cars but you can't buy respect in the 'hood - Curtis Jackson
Navigation for Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - A Grammar is not a Specification
Content
Sidebar
Footer
April 19, 2003
@ 04:58 PM
Comments [0]
A Grammar is not a Specification
There are two primary points of contention I have with Chris's post. The first is the assumption that W3C XML Schema is descriptive enough to replace prose descriptions of the structure of an XML document. Many who've worked with W3C XML Schema can list several limitations inherent in the language that occur in XML document formats that cannot be expressed, here's five off the top of my head
Specifying that an element or attribute cannot be from a particular namespace.
Specifying that a choice of attributes that can appear on an element.
Specifying that content models vary based on values of certain attributes or elements. For example, if the online attribute is true then the element should have a time-online child element otherwise should have a time-offline child element.
Specifying that two elements at the same scope may have different types.
Specify that certain elements can appear in any order without limitation on the how many times a particular element can appear.
Now let's assume that you have a document format that is simple enough that it doesn't stretch the capabilities of W3C XML Schema. Does this mean that one can use the having a schema makes a specification redundant? Why don't you be the judge of that, compare
Jorgen Thelin's schema for RSS 2.0
to the
RSS 2.0 specification
. Which would you rather read if you wanted to create an application that processed RSS?
Specifically which would you trust about what to do if an RSS feed's
item
had two
link
elements? The prose specification implies that this shouldn't happen but the schema specifies that any child element of the
item
element can be repeated zero or more times. This reminds me some of the problems I face in my day job dealing with the discrepencies between the
schema for Schema (sForS)
and the
actual prose of the specification
. As Don said, folks are
trying to make my hobby look like my day job
.
A schema/grammar is a good companion to a specification but it isn't a replacement for one.
--
Get yourself a
News Aggregator
and subscribe to my
RSS
feed
Disclaimer
:
The above comments do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. They are solely my opinion.
Tweet
Categories:
« Random Acts Of XSLT Geekery
|
Home
|
Nigerian Presidential Election Update »
Comments are closed.
RSS/Subscribe
Archives
All dates
All Posts
Search
Latest Posts
Girls Around Me app FREAK OUT is really a FourSquare freak out in Disguise
Some Thoughts on Address Book Privacy and Hashing as an Alternative to Gathering Raw Email Addresses
What I Learned After 3 Weeks of Writing Mobile Apps
The Social Graph: An Imperfect Abstraction or an Evolutionary Dead End?
The Real Problem with Facebook
Categories
Cloud Computing (3)
Comics (1)
Competitors/Web Companies (157)
Current Affairs (31)
Das Blog (3)
Life in the B0rg Cube (194)
Mindless Link Propagation (185)
Movie Review (13)
MSN (127)
Music (20)
Office Live (8)
Personal (53)
Platforms (57)
Programming (56)
Ramblings (144)
Rants (7)
RSS Bandit (215)
Seattle Startup Shoutout (4)
Social Software (182)
Startup Shoutout (4)
Syndication Technology (107)
Technology (162)
Trip Report (64)
Video Games (6)
Web Development (196)
Windows Live (228)
XML (203)
XML Web Services (114)
Archives
April, 2012 (1)
February, 2012 (1)
January, 2012 (1)
November, 2011 (1)
September, 2011 (3)
July, 2011 (2)
June, 2011 (1)
April, 2011 (1)
March, 2011 (1)
January, 2011 (2)
November, 2010 (2)
October, 2010 (2)
August, 2010 (3)
July, 2010 (3)
June, 2010 (3)
April, 2010 (6)
March, 2010 (3)
February, 2010 (5)
January, 2010 (4)
December, 2009 (2)
November, 2009 (8)
October, 2009 (2)
September, 2009 (3)
August, 2009 (4)
June, 2009 (1)
May, 2009 (12)
April, 2009 (5)
March, 2009 (16)
February, 2009 (11)
January, 2009 (20)
December, 2008 (12)
November, 2008 (12)
October, 2008 (22)
September, 2008 (12)
August, 2008 (15)
July, 2008 (18)
June, 2008 (19)
May, 2008 (12)
March, 2008 (2)
February, 2008 (27)
January, 2008 (20)
December, 2007 (26)
November, 2007 (25)
October, 2007 (30)
September, 2007 (16)
August, 2007 (34)
July, 2007 (26)
June, 2007 (32)
May, 2007 (38)
April, 2007 (15)
March, 2007 (32)
February, 2007 (33)
January, 2007 (31)
December, 2006 (29)
November, 2006 (47)
October, 2006 (26)
September, 2006 (45)
August, 2006 (41)
July, 2006 (38)
June, 2006 (47)
May, 2006 (34)
April, 2006 (39)
March, 2006 (35)
February, 2006 (45)
January, 2006 (42)
December, 2005 (43)
November, 2005 (40)
October, 2005 (48)
September, 2005 (45)
August, 2005 (40)
July, 2005 (31)
June, 2005 (35)
May, 2005 (39)
April, 2005 (31)
March, 2005 (39)
February, 2005 (22)
January, 2005 (25)
December, 2004 (32)
November, 2004 (27)
October, 2004 (24)
September, 2004 (26)
August, 2004 (21)
July, 2004 (27)
June, 2004 (28)
May, 2004 (40)
April, 2004 (37)
March, 2004 (41)
February, 2004 (51)
January, 2004 (54)
December, 2003 (42)
November, 2003 (40)
October, 2003 (41)
September, 2003 (9)
August, 2003 (11)
July, 2003 (10)
June, 2003 (15)
May, 2003 (12)
April, 2003 (13)
March, 2003 (13)
February, 2003 (13)
January, 2003 (13)
December, 2002 (12)
November, 2002 (8)
October, 2002 (6)
September, 2002 (5)
August, 2002 (6)
July, 2002 (7)
June, 2002 (4)
May, 2002 (8)
April, 2002 (3)
March, 2002 (1)
February, 2002 (1)
January, 2002 (4)
November, 2001 (4)
October, 2001 (3)
September, 2001 (3)
August, 2001 (1)
July, 2001 (1)
April, 2001 (3)
March, 2001 (2)
Admin
Sign In