Relational Model versus XML
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Interesting question. Interesting answer and somewhat unconvincing explanation. Interesting debate.
I'm inclined to go along with those who said that there isn't enough information in the question to draw a reasnable conclusion - except that there's going to be a lot of highly structured data with pretty tight performance, security, and access control requirements, for which XML is inappropriate and probably also a lot of unstructured data for which a relational model is not really appropriate. There's probably also a lot of formatted text - mostly PDF these days, but there's still plenty of LaTex and PostScript out there on University sites, and older research papers tend to use those (or at least they did last time I looked). So I was slghtly tempted to answer "neither is appropriate" but thought it extremely unlikely that that would be what the question's author wanted. Either on its own won't do the job particularly well, and that elimates three of the options. Oh dear, I've elimated 4 out of 4. Well, with relational I can stick things into blobs so maybe that's the answer that's wanted: it's no worse than any of the other wrong answers, so I chose that. I didn't even think of "I need to do some research, talk to some of the users and some of the providers of content, before even thinking about this question" because that was so far outside the range of options offered. I did think of "I'll use both and a few other things too" but I couldn't see my way to reading that into the "either will do" option.
It's a good question in that it provokes debate: but it's a terrible question in that all four options provided for the answer are unmitigated balderdash. The former is, of course, far more important than the latter.
Tom
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Hmm, I would think the answer to this question would be "it depends". Based on my assumptions about the limited information provided, a relational model would seem to be the appropriate choice as there doesn't appear to be any advantage to the XML overhead. It's really just a guess though without knowing a bit more about the data being stored in the database.
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Nils Gustav Stråbø (1/24/2013)
You live in the US and need to attend a meeting in Europe. What do you do?1. Buy a plane ticket?
2. Buy a canoo and paddle across the Atlantic?
No, those are very un-American answers. Senator MacCarthy might have disapproved. 😀
The proper American solution to this problem is to tell the meeting organisers to move the meeting to a more suitable place - maybe Springfield Missouri, or San Diego. Or Brownsville, Texas :hehe:. Or even Fairbanks :w00t:. After all, anything that side of the pond is better than anywhere where visitors risk corruption by those awful liberal Europeans.
Tom
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I knew I was going to get this one wrong since it was basically a opinion piece. Good discussion but not a great question.
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KWymore (1/24/2013)
I knew I was going to get this one wrong since it was basically a opinion piece. Good discussion but not a great question.It's not really an opinion piece, it's making the point that you need to think about the requirements before deciding whether to use SQL Server, native XML or something else. It also makes you think about how to store your data within the database; sometimes it's best to store some data in SQL Server in XML format.
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sipas (1/24/2013)
KWymore (1/24/2013)
I knew I was going to get this one wrong since it was basically a opinion piece. Good discussion but not a great question.It's not really an opinion piece, it's making the point that you need to think about the requirements before deciding whether to use SQL Server, native XML or something else. It also makes you think about how to store your data within the database; sometimes it's best to store some data in SQL Server in XML format.
Since this question does not provide enough information about the requirements to effectively make that decision, the answer cannot be supported by facts... leaving only opinion to base your answer on.
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sestell1 (1/24/2013)
sipas (1/24/2013)
KWymore (1/24/2013)
I knew I was going to get this one wrong since it was basically a opinion piece. Good discussion but not a great question.It's not really an opinion piece, it's making the point that you need to think about the requirements before deciding whether to use SQL Server, native XML or something else. It also makes you think about how to store your data within the database; sometimes it's best to store some data in SQL Server in XML format.
Since this question does not provide enough information about the requirements to effectively make that decision, the answer cannot be supported by facts... leaving only opinion to base your answer on.
When you don't have enough information to make a firm decision between the two options, surely the answer is that either could be appropriate. Admittedly the wording of option 3 could have been better.
But that's just my opinion.
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I was confused by the lack of an option, "Irrelevant, since markup languages should have been abandoned at least 30 years ago." 😉
- Les
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I would like to see the performance of an XML database on the day when the course registrations open. Not speaking about the absence of native views and sprocs that isolate the middle tier from schema changes.
(Yes, I got it wrong. 😉 )
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Revenant (1/24/2013)
I would like to see the performance of an XML database on the day when the course registrations open. Not speaking about the absence of native views and sprocs that isolate the middle tier from schema changes.(Yes, I got it wrong. 😉 )
Personally, I would hate to see it. These days I believe in prevention, not cure.
Tom
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Great Question..
Thank You..:-)
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L' Eomot Inversé (1/24/2013)
Nils Gustav Stråbø (1/24/2013)
You live in the US and need to attend a meeting in Europe. What do you do?1. Buy a plane ticket?
2. Buy a canoo and paddle across the Atlantic?
No, those are very un-American answers. Senator MacCarthy might have disapproved. 😀
The proper American solution to this problem is to tell the meeting organisers to move the meeting to a more suitable place - maybe Springfield Missouri, or San Diego. Or Brownsville, Texas :hehe:. Or even Fairbanks :w00t:. After all, anything that side of the pond is better than anywhere where visitors risk corruption by those awful liberal Europeans.
Now, now, Tom. There are some American's who wish we had been born and raised in, or lived now in Europe. If it wasn't for my wife, and her desire to stay close to her family, I'd be there right now. Guess that makes me an "improper" American. I can live with that. 🙂
[font="Verdana"]Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.[/font]
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Terrible question. To have to make such a fundamental architecture decision with a one sentence spec means this project will be doomed from the start.
Also the explanation mentions the need for a platform independant solution (did Joe write that passage). Personally I don't give two hoots if my solution doesn't work on Oracle or MySQL. If you bring me in to design a SQL Server solution, that's exactly what you will get.
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Well, I got it wrong for thinking ; that the university website needs more publications and subscriptions , so better to have xml structures ; good for subscribers..
~ demonfox
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Wondering what I would do next , when I am done with this one :ermm:
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