On 14/08/2012 18:46, pablo pazos wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Just thinking...
>
> Why not make node ID mandatory for all nodes?
>
> Since this will be handled by tools, I don't see the point of having
> to worry about if the node has an id or not: the tool just put some
> node ID on each node and us as developers use that fact to query and
> process data. It seems so much simple to have only one criteria, and
> we don't lose flexibility or expresiveness.
> *
> *
Hi Pablo,
the reasons we make it optional in cases where it is not needed:
* there are huge numbers of chains of leaf nodes near the periphery of
most models, where every attribute has only a single object value
(have a look at any ELEMENT node and below in any archetype);
node_ids serve absolutely no purpose in these locations, but could
easily double the number of ids in the model - and for each of
these, some definition has to be invented. These 'junk' definitions
would confuse translators who would never be sure what has to be
translated and what not.
* it would increase the size of most paths used in real querying,
because they nearly always have things like /value/value, or
/value/magnitude on the end.
So it actually creates problems without solving anything (for example,
it has no impact at all on Seref's problem). The rules for knowing when
they are needed are simple and published, and easy to implement, so it's
no problem for tools.
- thomas
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