FYI: XML Schema patterns for databinding

Following on the XML Schema 1.0 User Experiences and Interoperability
Workshop [1], we are currently working on a draft Working Group
Charter proposal for new work on XML Schema patterns for databinding.
This Working Group would develop a set of patterns for common data
structures of XML Schema for the purpose of simplifying the mapping of
XML Schemas into programming language structures.

We propose to accomplish the work in two phases:

 (1) during the first phase, the group would target data structures
that can be represented and preserved with XML Schema 1.0, such as
collections, vectors, or maps, and that would not required the use of
XML Schema annotations in order to preserve them. We expect this first
phase to be relatively short, restricting itself to "today's state of
the art".

 (2) depending on the success of the first phase, during the second
phase, the group would use XML Schema annotations to address more
advanced data structures. Consider the example of graphs: an XML Schema
document should include XML Schema annotations to indicate that the data
structure is a graph and should be preserved as such when represented in
a programming language. 

This group should also look at the issue of versioning, especially
during the second phase; however this should be done in light of the
discussion being held in the Technical Architecture Group, the XML
Schema Working Group, and the Web Services Description Working Group.
The primary audience for those patterns are WSDL authors who would like
to provide XML Schemas that can be converted in a consistent manner
across various programming languages, thus this work must be
language-independent. 

We anticipate that this Working Group would be part of the Web Services
Activity. While Web Services toolkits are expected to provide full
support of the XML Schema 1.0 specification, having a set of patterns to
use would help the user experience when dealing with Web Services
toolkits that map XML Schemas into existing programming languages.

Comments and suggestions are welcome on this list,

Philippe

-- 
Philippe Le Hegaret - http://www.w3.org/People/LeHegaret/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Architecture Domain Leader