Jon Udell writes
Reading the Longhorn SDK docs is a disorienting experience. Everything's familiar but different. Example 3: The new XSD: "WinFS" Schema Definition Language "WinFS" introduces a schema definition language to describe "WinFS" types. This language is an XML vocabulary. "WinFS" includes a set of schemas that define a set of Item types and NestedElement types. These are called Windows types. Yeah, "embrace and extend" was so much fun, I can hardly wait for "replace and defend." Seriously, if the suite of standards now targeted for elimination from Microsoft's actively-developed portfolio were a technological dead end, ripe for disruption, then we should all thank Microsoft for pulling the trigger. If, on the other hand, these standards are fundamentally sound, then it's a time for what Clayton Christensen calls sustaining rather than disruptive advances. I believe the ecosystem needs sustaining more than disruption. Like Joe, I hope Microsoft's bold move will mobilize the sustainers.
Reading the Longhorn SDK docs is a disorienting experience. Everything's familiar but different.
Example 3: The new XSD:
"WinFS" Schema Definition Language "WinFS" introduces a schema definition language to describe "WinFS" types. This language is an XML vocabulary. "WinFS" includes a set of schemas that define a set of Item types and NestedElement types. These are called Windows types.
Yeah, "embrace and extend" was so much fun, I can hardly wait for "replace and defend." Seriously, if the suite of standards now targeted for elimination from Microsoft's actively-developed portfolio were a technological dead end, ripe for disruption, then we should all thank Microsoft for pulling the trigger. If, on the other hand, these standards are fundamentally sound, then it's a time for what Clayton Christensen calls sustaining rather than disruptive advances. I believe the ecosystem needs sustaining more than disruption. Like Joe, I hope Microsoft's bold move will mobilize the sustainers.
I can't speak for the other technologies Jon but being the Program manager responsible for XML schema technologies in the .NET Framework [as well as the fact that the offices of a number of WinFS folks are a few doors away from mine] I can speak on the above example.
The first thing I'd like to note is that Jon's example is that the W3C XML Schema definition language (XSD) is far from being targetted for elimination from Microsoft's actively-developed portfolio? We have almost a dozen technologies and products that utilize XSD in some way shape or form; SQL Server [Yukon], Visual Studio.NET, Indigo, Word, Excel, InfoPath, SQLXML, the .NET framework's DataSet, BizTalk, FoxPro, the .NET Framework's XmlSerializer and a couple of others. The fact that one technology or product decides that it makes more sense to create an XML vocabulary that meets their specific needs instead of shoehorning an inappropriate technology into their use case and thus causing pain for themselves and their customers is a wise decision that should be lauded (In fact,this is the entire point XML was invented in the first place, see my "SGML on the Web" post) instead of being heralded as another evil conspiracy by Microsoft.
Now to go into specifics. The WinFS schema language and W3C XML Schema do two fundamentally different things; W3C XML Schema is a way for describing the structure and contents of an XML document while a WinFS schema describes types and relationships of items stored in WinFS. At first glance, the only thing that connects both schema languages is that they are both written in XML. Of course, this is just syntax so this similarity isn't any more significant than the fact that both SQL and Java use English keywords.
Where it gets interesting is if one asks whether the WinFS data model can be mapped to XML and then XSD used to describe the structure of this XML view of WinFS. This is possible but leads to impedance mismatches due to the differences between the WinFS model and that used by W3C XML Schema. Specifically there are constructs in W3C XML Schema that don't map to concepts in WinFS and concepts in WinFS that don't map to constructs in W3C XML Schema. So for WinFS to use W3C XML Schema as the syntax for its schema language it would have to do two things
The problem with this approach is that it leads to complaints of a different kind. The first being that there is user confusion because not every valid W3C XML Schema construct is usable in this context and the other being that W3C XML Schema will end up be extended in a proprietary manner which eventually leads to yells of "embrace and extend". By the way, this isn't guesswork on my part this is a description of what happened when Microsoft took this approach with the .NET Framework's DataSet class and SQLXML. History has taught us that these approaches were unwise and used W3C XML Schema outside of its original goals and usage scenarios. Instead, we have moved back to the original goals of XML where instead of relying on one uber-vocabulary for all ones needs, vocabularies specific to various situations are built but can be translated or transformed as needed when moving from one domain to another.
Ideally, even though WinFS has its own schema language it makes sense that it should be able to import or export WinFS items as XML described using an W3C XML Schema since this is the most popular way to transfer structured and semi-structured data in our highly connected world. This is functionality is something I've brought up with the WinFS architects which they have stated will be investigated.