Richard Saul Wurman used to say "Clarify, Don't Simplify". This article proves that point. It is simplified to the point of distortion.

1) XML is nothing in and of itself. It...

It was a very good article, for sure, but I want to rain on everyone's parade by proposing a more generic definition of data warehouse. To me, a data warehouse...

"In my understanding, a schema in Oracle is like a database in SQL Server."

I think a database in SQL Server would be more like a tablespace in Oracle. FWIW.

A kino game that used to run on a line printer.

Then, for real, I was in charge of internationalization at Smith Corona. We wrote our code in 8051 assembly language,...

You're absolutely right, it does only address the bloat issue of XML (which is a major issue, the one issue that gets it shot down most of the time). However,...

"I hate XML with a passion but I just don't see a viable alternative"

Like I said above, YAML (http://www.yaml.org) seems like a decent alternative for data transfer, .ini files,...

It's generally not a good idea to use turnips to create pizza dough; a mustache on a halibut just looks silly. Similarly, using an XML language as a database, or...

"..'Standardisation' for communication. Is XML the best for this, I have no idea, but I dont see alot of other technologies putting there hands up for the job."

Actually, for data...

Great Article! I've been saying this for years.

No one seems to realize that XML is nothing in and of itself. It's a metalanguage. All the books/articles/whatevers always seem to say...

Thomas--my point exactly.

You should never store different entities as the same entity, no matter how you store them: XML, different relations, an E-A-V table, a flat file, whatever.

If performance is important, then...

"It depends on the information you are trying to store. If the clinical trial data has any meaning at all, it has to be defined, and if it is...

"Data Independence is at least partly defined as the idea that database design is independent of any application that might make use of the data. This is the heart of the...

Sorry I was not more clear. I can't see where it is ever beneficial to combine, say, employee type and employee code if they are truly different things. The fact...

I mostly object to the use of "good"/"bad"/"correct"/"incorrect" in this instance without a lot of qualifiers (i.e., what are you trying to optimize for). It can be "better" to combine thousands...