Re: Small THREDDS catalogs and the Proposed new specification for THREDDSS Catalogs

Roland Schweitzer wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> John Caron wrote:
>
> > Hi benno:
> >
> > Benno Blumenthal wrote:
> >
> > > John Caron wrote:
> >
> >
> > There will be great benefits in switching to the 1.0 spec, as you 
> > note above, esp in connecting to Digital Libaries and providing the 
> > raw data for search services.
> >
> > > Does it include an automatic editing interface easily accessible to 
> > > everyone? 
> >
> >
> > yes, we are working on a editing interface to make this easy.
>
> If one believes the hype then using W3C Schema should also allow for 
> use of "generic" XML editing tools. 
>
> I have used XML Spy (a commercial product) which does validate as you 
> prepare the instance document.  It lets you know via the GUI what 
> elements and attributes (and restricted attribute values) are 
> available at any particular level in the instance document, but I'll 
> be the first to admit it's really a tool to help experts (not novice 
> users) prepare documents.
>
> Other tools might also work.  For example:
>
> *XAmple XML Editor <http://www.felixgolubov.com/XMLEditor/> 
> /Description from the Publisher/*
> /Java Swing based XML editor that analyzes a given schema and then 
> generates a document-specific graphical user interface. Unlike other 
> XML editors, the XAmple XML editor GUI exposes not just a tree 
> representation of the XML document but rather a logical combination of 
> the XML document and respective XML Schema. To be able to prepare 
> valid XML documents of significant complexity, a user is not required 
> to be familiar with XML and XML Schema languages and to have any 
> a-priori knowledge about the documents structural requirements./
>
> I have not tried this as yet, but I will be trying it out in 
> conjunction with the new LAS XML schema we're developing.  Anybody 
> else have experience with this product or others?
>
> Roland

heres an interesting POV:

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/04/21/state.html

/
Editor's Note: This article is based on the closing keynote speech that 
Edd Dumbill delivered to the XML Europe 2004 conference in Amsterdam./

To conclude, I'd like to celebrate a few of XML's qualities that endure 
and make it the truly unique technology it is.

   * Intimate relationship with the network: XML's coexistence with the
     Web has unlocked a great deal of power in developing distributed
     applications. The simple concept of the URI, in particular, has
     facilitated both elegance and potential in XML applications.
   *

   * Human readable and editable: This aspect of XML cannot be
     underestimated in importance. In 2003, over 80% of developers
     surveyed by XML.com used a text editor to create XML, even if they
     used another tool, too. The adoption of simple forms of documents
     on the Web, such as HTML and RSS, is a testament to this. A
     successful document type is manifestly a readable document type.
     Microsoft gets this one, too: look at their latest XML creations
     such as XAML and the WinFS
     
<http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/lhsdk/winfs/conWinFSImplementationModel.aspx>
     metadata notations. They've come through the complexity fire back
     down to readable markup. (As an RDF fan, the realization of this
     truth causes me some pain. The way out is to stop thinking of RDF
     as an XML application, and look to easier syntaxes such as Turtle
     <http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/discovery/2004/01/turtle/> and N3
     <http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer>.)
   *

   * Dedicated individuals who keep the flame: Were it not for our XML
     heroes, we'd be mired in second-rate, committee-led technology.
     The number of those on this list is continually growing, and we
     ought to be thankful for them.