Thoughts on Leigh's Question

At this stage, I am not worried about the differences in the XML vocabularies used by different people. For at least a little while we should explore the alternatives and see what the different models and different encodings have to offer. I have found that other peoples work has really helped me to see better solutions to some of the problems and sometimes helped me think of new ideas to try.

I think that after a while, the alternatives will become set and the group will need to have a means of selecting among the alternatives. The challenge cases should provide a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the different solutions. Then the group can come up with a proposal, invite comments, and work out the first version.

How to present the different solutions to the challenge cases is a problem that should be worked out now. If this was decided at the last meeting, let us know. Otherwise, it seems that many people have there own ideas of the proper way to present solutions.

My ideas are:

An XML data model is, for me, a DTD or a Schema. The model is an abstract representation of the data. This is what we should be producing. Personally, I prefer DTD's because I am more familiar with them. They are easier to understand because they are simple and relatively free of markup. As Bob Morris has pointed out though, they do lack some of the features found in XML Schemas. However, Schemas are more difficult to understand, especially for people who might know the systematics, but not the XML.

A solution to a challenge case should have the model (DTD or Schema), markup of the challenge case that validates to the model, and a short program that solves the challenge using the markup. The last is important because it is too easy to develop a theoretically neat model that has practical problems. Also, if the group is to pick from the features of different alternatives it would be better to see how they work.

These are just my thoughts and I would like to understand what others are thinking and what may have already been decided at the last meeting.

Kerry