Re: diffenrences between providers / servers

[Holger Thon <holger gidayu max uni-duisburg de>]

Hi!

On Wed, Jul 26, 2000 at 09:22:58PM +0200, Jens P. Elsner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > > Isnt it possible to write a SQL abstraction layer that provides
> > > one defined SQL dialect and translates them into the data source's
> > > SQL ? 
> > > 

There exist sql gateway servers which are able to transparently connect to
different database servers, so sure it would be possible.
But the maintainance of this would be quite hard, i think.
By using xml, you do not only have a unique way of accessing data,
but also of describing and storing data (if i understood the xml discussions).
As a consequence, you can export data to xml and read it into a completly
different database without having to change anything, theroretically.

Sure this is what a sql gateway server can also do. But you depend on a server,
i.e. you need much more resources then having realized something similar on
the client side. Additionally, xml files will be more and more involved into
all kinds of it branches, i suppose. The former SGML Europe has been renamed
to XML Europe; this should show the importance of xml anyway. ;-)

Well a important argument for using xml is:
- easy to understand and implement
- powerful
- platform independent
- easy to integrate in web based services
-> eases distribution of data and reimport of data

Don't know what the exact case was to choose xml, as i'm new here, though. ;-)

Ciao,

  Holger
-- 
Operator excuse of the instant:
You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish (from most tunefs man pages)