Issue 364 proposal

Hi all, 8-)

In issue 364 [1] the commentator is concerned that making enc:id and
enc:ref attributes mutually exclusive in appearance on a single element
information item unnecessarily limits the object graph data model.

The attributes are only a way of representing graph edges in the XML
data. Both attributes are defined in the Encoding section and they don't
carry any information directly represented in the graph model. Therefore
Encoding attributes id and ref being mutually exclusive does not limit
the data model, rather it reflects the data model. Looking from this
perspective, the issue is invalid.

The issue might be rephrased to say that the data model should allow a
reference to a reference (possibly by making a reference a first-class
value), allowing the so called pointer chains. My proposal is that we
close the issue with the status quo because I don't see references to
references as a necessary part of the data model.

Best regards

                   Jacek Kopecky

                   Senior Architect, Systinet Corporation
                   http://www.systinet.com/




[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/xmlp-lc-issues.html#x364

Received on Wednesday, 9 October 2002 15:48:12 UTC