Ian Goddard <goddai01@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Tom Perrett wrote:
>
>>
>> I thought that XML was a proprietary
>> standard (ie Microsoft),
>
<snip>
>
> In theory this limitation of GEDCOM doesn't prevent someone from
> writing a program to represent things in a better way (it might be on
> my list of things to do but it never seems to get near the top!).
> Such a program would need a data model capable of maintaining
> alternative links, maybe attaching a measure of confidence to each.
> In fact, as I've written in
Well, it's not the DATA model that has a problem, rather it's the fact
that there is (possibly) an implied relation****p muddled into the gedcom
file format, and perpetuated by a traditional software display that only
allows tree/family views. GEDCOM allows for a source record to be
related to any of the actual data items as well as a surity level if I'm
not mistaken, but regardless you simply don't have a suitable display in
existing software for the condition.
> another post, we don't even need a program to represent this - it can
> be done with file cards and paper clips - and nobody has responded to
> my challenge to name a package which can emulate this. But if you and
> I
I may have found one in my XML quest...
http://www.genopro.com/
I don't know just yet if it sup****ts XML, but it may just display the
situation you described (if I understood it correctly!). And, if it did
sup****t an XML schema, I'd bet that the actual DATA it uses would likely
overlap with genealogy and family history data. Note that I said
overlap.. maybe more, maybe less, but overlap.
> had such a program and it were confined to GEDCOM as a means of data
> interchange it would be quite ***bersome to transfer such data from my
> program to yours. My program would have to throw away the information
> describing the ambiguities in order to write a GEDCOM. Your program
Yes it would. Which is fine if that's all I need, isn't it?
> would then be able to im****t that but we would need to find some other
> way of communicating the missing information so that you could enter
> it
Unless I was using at least the same DATA granularity as you. Even if I
used it for something else, XML would let me call it what I like. And if
my use built upon your data (I needed it to be more granular) I'd be
adding data anyhow. And, it wouldn't impact the integrity of your data
set because if it didn't match your schema (rules) you'd know it because
you'd have a different schema when I give it to you, or it would be
remapped to your schema. The rules and mapping are usually handled in
software so it sounds worse than it really is.
> by hand. In practice it seems that the GEDCOM type of model has
> influenced genealogical S/W to the extent that there doesn't seem to
> be any real advance on it.
Again, one of the problems coming out of GEDCOM is that the DATA is
getting mixed with the model. The data is and will always be what it is,
right? The differences are in how we each use it and think of it, imo.
>
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