Re: Doesn't XForms duplicate what already exists?

Adam,

1)  Yes, much of the "data model" work in XForms is redundant with XML Schema.
2)  The group has already quarreled at length over this.
3)  I largely agree with your views.
4)  A number of folk from the HTML forms world feel the need for a different
syntax.
5)  We have agreed that the XForms data model should be mappable into XML
Schema.
6)  There is ongoing discussion of additional extensions to capture more
constraints/semantics
than XML Schema currently supports.  Hopefully, these would folded into a later
version
of XML Schema.
7)  One major bone of contention concerns the extent to which we support decimal
arithmetic
and rounding.   XML Schema calls for scaled decimal numbers with specified
precision,
e.g., 0.25 as scaled decimal with precision 2 would be represented internally as
an integer 25.

                Welcome to the fray,

                Frank Olken

Adam Van Den Hoven wrote:

> I'll admit that I'm somewhat new to the whole XML scene and I may have
> skimmed a few points but it seems to me that a good portion of the XForms
> initiative is duplicating what already exists.
>
> Take the data model for instance. From what I can tell, it is designed to
> describe the data structure of XML data. Isn't this exactly what XSchema and
> DTDs are supposed to do? Does it really make sense to write one document to
> describe valid data and another to describe how to pass valid data? The
> should be functionally the same thing. Perhaps XSchema doesn't provide
> enough robustness to do all the stuff XForms data model does but shouldn't
> that mean that XSchema needs to be changed?
>
> My point is simply this. If we have a standard that already defines valid
> data, why is necessary to create a new standard. It seems that writing
> XSchema should be no different that writing an XForms data model and we
> should, in general, be writing XSchema (or DTD or whatever) for our XML data
> anyways, so those who are doing once off or proprietary type stuff shouldn't
> have any extra work (and wouldn't have to learn another spec). Those of us
> who are implementing a public schema (and there are lots) wouldn't have to
> do that particular step. We would leave validation to who ever wrote the
> schema and we just have to worry how we used it.
>
> Have a great day.
> Adam

--
 Frank Olken

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
1 Cyclotron Road, Mailstop 50B-3238
Berkeley, CA 94720

510-486-5891  (office, voice)  510-486-4004  (office, fax)
510-442-7361  (pager)          510-593-3344  (cell phone)
510-843-5145  (home, voice)    URL: http://www.lbl.gov/~olken

Received on Monday, 28 August 2000 17:52:36 UTC