notbob wrote:
> On 2008-05-20, tomas <tomas@fictional.com> wrote:
>> I know very little of SQLite -- will any PHP-enabled (with the
>> appropriate extensions if any) server allow me to use an SQLite database
>> file, though it lacks MySQL support?
>
> Being so new to even html and php, I'm still trying to figure out the "why"
> of xml in general. If you're not using a db, why xml at all? BTW, it
> appears you are using a *nix OS. It's easy to load a db. I'm not really
> asking you a question, just adding my 2 cents worth of food for thought:
>
> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001114.html
>
> nb

The 'coding horror' example at the site you site has more to do
with soap horrors that XML.

There are lots of promising new and largely unexplored XML frontiers.

I spent a few years experimenting with XML databases (SleepyCat
and Exist mostly). Hierarchical databases offer a lot.
GUI screens can built from a menu (choose a checkbox widget, choose
a dropdown menu widget, choose a container widget of some kind, where
the container widget can contain other widgets.....the resulting data
structure can be instantly and automatically instantiated as BOTH
a point an click GUI AND a schema. You can now (repeatedly) fill out
that newly instantiated GUI an save data that goes into an XML database.

That same GUI can be instantly transformed into a query builder.
Click which of the descriptive widgets you want to use and boom,
you have a query GUI that can spit out complex XPath and/or XQuery
statements, complete with parentheses and compound conditions,
that return ghats-ass accurate results.

XML does NOT have to be normalized as tediously as relational data,
because "who modifies what" relationships are built into the
hierarchical structure.

Foreign keys (although not officially supported by either SleepyCat or
Exist just yet) can be implemented (we did) where one descriptive XML
file refers to another. Junction-link heirarchies that join two or more
XML hierarchies into a many-to-many relationship cannot be fully
automated.....queries at that point do cross an automatable boudary, and
do (at that point) require some expert knowledge
of the underlying schema. But what *can* be done automatically with XML
is far beyond anything possible with relational schemas, hibernate and
ruby on rails not withstanding.

There is a lot of XML chafe out there that does (like corba) need to be
discarded. But there is a lot of exciting stuff yet to do, and to take
advantage of. XML can do things still impossible with relational
organization.