From: Ankur Jain (ankur@cs.washington.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 14 2004 - 06:00:32 PDT
The Essence of XML - Simeon and Wadler
The paper presents a formalization of the core features of XML such as
values, types, matching, validation and erasure.
It starts the formal description by definition of values and types. It
then defines yields, resolution, susbtitution and derives which are the
four judgements it then uses in formalizing matching and validation. The
paper then discusses ambiguity of validation and erasure both in their
model and in XML schema. This is followed by charaterization with regards
to round-tripping and reverse-roundtripping. The paper finally introduces
the notion of sensibility and tells how it can be used to optimize
matching.
From the paper it comes across that this is the first attempt to formalize
XML Schema. This infact came to me as a surprise. I had this notion that
for standards as widely promoted and accepted as XML, plenty of effort
would have gone in the design phase itself - and that should have meant a
formal description of the language as definitely one of the first steps.
So a formalization only after the standard has become so popular was sort
of unexpected.
The paper in itself was very well-written and does a nice job of what it
sets out for. I found the introduction of 'sensibility' and its use to
optimize matching particularly interesting. It was also interesting how
they related matching, validation and erasure.
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