Re: Rationale for restricted uses of "all"

Hi Noah,

Noah_Mendelsohn@lotus.com wrote:

Thanks for sharing this insight with us!
...

> Just to avoid complicating an already overly large 
> specification, we decided to tackle extension initially only for 
> sequences, which models certain forms of OO single inheritance moderately 
> well.  


I think that this is the main point and what I find most questionable 

about W3C XML Schema is not the fact that it's not complex enough ;=) 

but rather the "usage" made of the complexity accepted into the

language...

Of course it's easy to criticise and most of what I have learned about 
schema languages have been learned studying the work of the Schema WG... 
but if I may be allowed one more critic, I would say that there are 2 
directions in which complexity can be deploied when defining a schema 
language: the first one is the expressive power (ie the scope of the set 
of instance documents which can be described) while the second are the 
"composing features" which let users recompose basic building blocs.

IMHO, the level of overall complexity would have been better used by 
focussing more on the expressive power than on the "composing features".

Expressive power is the "engine" or the basis of a schema language and 
you can't improve it afterward, while you can always add more "composing 
features" which I see more like a cherry on the cake...

Anyway, it's now the way it is ;=)  and for the best or the worse I 
guess we have to live with it for a while and try to use it for the best!

Thanks

Eric

-- 
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Eric van der Vlist       http://xmlfr.org            http://dyomedea.com
http://xsltunit.org      http://4xt.org           http://examplotron.org
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Received on Friday, 9 November 2001 15:00:46 UTC