Hi, While I have not had the opportunity to listen in person to this great talk about XML database, I did have the good fortune of going through the slides after somebody recently posted the online links for the slides.
At the risk of slightly sounding off topic (but it does base on Kenneth's question on specific examples), I would like anybody's views on the applicability of XML database to clinical databases where the information that needs to be stored comes from a domain that is largely undefined or unpredictable in advance (maybe the more precise term is unstructured data but I am not too sure as I am amateur programmer myself). I did have in the past developed clinical databases (data captured from clinical trials) using the EAV model out of relational tables. The queries turned out to be terribly slow so I was forced to used a combination of true relational tables and EAV tables out of hacked up relational tables. Even then, the performance levels sucked. I would appreciate it if you can throw light on what would be ideal alternatives (instead of just relational databases) to storing such disparate information items. Can object oriented database such as the commercial Cache be a solution? Or XML databases perhaps? Thanks in advance, Ali Mohammed. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kenneth Downs Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 9:17 AM To: NYPHP Talk Subject: [nyphp-talk] Some comments on the XML Talk Rusty et al, I had a great time at the XML database talk, it was very informative. I have a few comments, questions, and suggestions. First, I think after seeing the talk that I would have liked in the beginning to get a more complete description of the problem domain that XML databases are trying to solve. Specific examples here would be very productive. We know that publishing looms large here, what are some specific issues? This would have made the code example more meaningful to me. Second, there were ideas that came out during Q & A that might be expanded on to good purpose. Things that we might not know or take for granted, like the philosophy regarding types and structures. The audience seemed to be focusing on the need for structure, while the tool did not seem to want to do that. A couple of slides outlined the philosophy of types and structures might have been useful here. Finally, I would have liked to hear more of Rusty's ideas about the relationship between the file system, the web server, and the database. Rusty, do you want to expand on that here? -- Kenneth Downs Secure Data Software, Inc. www.secdat.com www.andromeda-project.org 631-689-7200 Fax: 631-689-0527 cell: 631-379-0010 _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
