Why XML Over the Relational Model?

[david at megginson.com]

Dan Holle writes:

 > IMHO, Occam's Razor between XML and DBMS revolves around data
 > complexity and multiple updaters.
 > 
 > If the XML phonebook had every US phone number, you wouldn't want
 > to be on the receiving end of a servlet like this.

 [etc.]

Actually, XML would be a wonderful way to transfer every U.S. phone
number from one database to another, but querying an XML document (or
a representation of it in a repository) would not be an efficient way
to look up a specific phone number, and transferring the whole
phonebook in XML to a thin client would be plain silly.

In brief, then, XML is a very sophisticated exchange (import/export)
format, and RDBMs are very sophisticated storage and retrieval tools.
Different species, but they can be taught to play together nicely.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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