Re: Access Languages are Tied to Schemas

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Thu, 20 Nov 1997 21:06:12 -0500

At 12:53 PM 11/21/97 +1100, Rick Jelliffe wrote:
>
>
>> From: Jonathan Robie <jwrobie@mindspring.com>
>
>> The following properties of object models are easily represented in SGML/XML:
>>
>> o Identity
>> o State
>> o Type
>>
>> These properties are not easily represented:
>>
>> o Behavior (except for in languages that allow methods to be
>> represented as data, e.g. Java)
>> o Encapsulation constraints
>
>I think you miss what is perhaps *THE* most important thing that SGML content
>models represent: sequence.
>
>This is one of the essential distinguishing features of SGML.

The purpose of my message was to describe what SGML/XML-based interfaces to
object systems can represent, not to propose that SGML/XML should have the
same inheritance mechanisms as object oriented systems. Whether or not they
should, I think it is pretty clear that they don't.

Jonathan