Re: [Bug-gnupedia] just HTML??

[Tom Chance]

> This discussion of databases versus XML is
> ill-advised. Databases can not
> organize content in the same way as a markup
> language (how would you make
> things like paragraph breaks represented in a DB
> schema?)

Easily! I'm not sure, but I have a feeling you can do
this in a mySQL database anyway. I'll look into it.
And even if you couldn't, as the database will have to
be parsed by a perl script, you just have to put in
<br> in for line breaks when you database it, and then
read those when you parse it again for display. Any
other markup you need is done in a similar way, and
interpreted by the perl scripts youd have to have with
or without an XML respository.


> However, things can be XMl and then stored in or
> indexed by a database. A
> good way to do this is to make sure the entire DB is
> reconstructable from the
> plain XML files, and use the DB for speed of access,
> searching, etc.

Yes you could have a DB for catalogue individual XML
files. But as one DB would be faster, easier to
maintain and easier to construct (it is so much easier
to put a submission straight into a database, rather
than formatting it and saving it as an XML file), why
have XML files at all? Until somebody gives proper
proof of the advantages of the XML/DB idea (ie not
just attitude, a logical document or a demo) I'm not
at all convinced. 

Tom Chance

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