Kimbro Staken wrote: > The reason I'm asking is because there has been very little activity > based on the last draft that was posted. I expected that to at least > spark some comment or maybe even cries of outrage but it has been very > quiet instead.
Sorry about that -- nothing is worse than complete silence. I'm usually so busy that I only have time for localized bursts of activity on XML:DB. I've only had time to glance at the latest draft, but it looked reasonable to me. I'll try to look closely later this week. > I'll state the current goal of the API is to provide the ability to > build applications that can move easily from one vendors product to > another. Exactly. > Now times have changed a lot since both ODBC and JDBC were developed and > Open Source has become a very viable way of developing software to > achieve the same goal. An example of this would be Perl DBI and SAX. Actually, both SAX and ODBC were developed in the same way XML:DB was developed: iterative work on the spec and implementations by a number of different vendors, until enough experience was gained to label the spec 1.0. > So > what I wanted to throw out was the question of would it be of more value > to us to focus more on implementation and less on specification? I think so. If we get several different implementations over several different databases, it should ferret out any problems. > What I > mean is should the output of this project be not only a driver manager > and specification but also the drivers? One stated goal of XML:DB is to > develop specs and reference implementations of those specs so this isn't > inconsistent. I don't think the project itself needs to be a delivery vehicle for drivers. I think it just needs to deliver the spec and any common code, such as the driver managers in JDBC or ODBC. However, I do think that drivers need to be written. A spec without implementations to prove it is not useful. > We're so early in the XML database game and everyone's implementations > are so immature and so different that a comprehensive spec is going to > be very difficult to develop. Basically I'm thinking a simple usable API > with a few drivers in 3 months is much more valuable then waiting a year > for us to fully detail a spec and then get some initial implementations. Agreed. One useful measure of success is getting a handful (three to five) of independently-written applications to work with a handful independently-written of drivers. If we can do this, then I'd say we have a pretty useable spec. -- Ron ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact adminstrator: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Read archived messages: http://archive.xmldb.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------
