19.451 relational database and TEI

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 451.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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         Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 06:02:52 +0000
         From: Joris van Zundert <joris.van.zundert_at_gmail.com>
         Subject: Re: 19.445 relational database and TEI

Hmmm... this lures me into quoting from Slashdot
(<http://Slashdot.org>Slashdot.org's tagline reads 'News for nerds,
stuff that matters.'):

>Re:XML database
>(Score:4, Insightful)
>by Oscaro (153645) on Wednesday November 23, @08:05AM (#14099406)
>Talking about native XML databases... My company can't find a decent
>one, preferably open source.
>
>>That's probably because an XML database is NOT a decent idea. XML is NOT
>>meant to be used as a way to store data! Rather, it's a way to
>>communicate data between entities.
>>
>>Sadly, XML is a one of those words that have the magic power to make
>>marketing people happy. So they put it everywhere. If that doesn't work,
>>hey just put more.

I agree. I used both XML- and object-databases. They barely work...
I'd almost say they don't, And they certainly have lousy performance.

Kind regards,
Joris van Zundert

On 11/26/05, Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty
<<mailto:willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>)
<<mailto:willard_at_lists.village.virginia.edu>
willard_at_lists.village.virginia.edu> wrote:
                 Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 445.
         Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                     <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                          www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                       Submit to:
<mailto:humanist_at_princeton.edu>humanist_at_princeton.edu

           Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 08:41:17 +0000
           From: Eric Haswell <<mailto:ehaswell_at_gmail.com>ehaswell_at_gmail.com >

Another option you may wish to consider for this project is a native
XML database such as eXist
(<http://www.exist-db.org>http://www.exist-db.org ). Given the highly
granular nature of the markup this could be a good fit. With a native
XML database, the XML file is the database record, so you avoid all
the headaches that come with having to 'shred' your data to make it
fit the data-centric model of a relational database system. Just drop
the XML source into the database and it is ready for querying with
XPath/XQuery.

Eric

__________________________________
Eric Haswell
University of Victoria
Humanities Computing and Media Centre

-- 
Mr. Joris J. van Zundert (MA)
Huygens Institute
Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences
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