This talk by Simon St. Laurent examines a few approaches, notably RELAX NG and Schematron, which can be used instead of or in combination with W3C XML Schema to validate XML in more powerful, more intuitive, and more flexible ways. It will also cover how to use RELAX NG to generate W3C XML Schema or DTDs to support tools which only understand those formats.

Simon St. Laurent is an editor at O'Reilly & Associates, and contributing editor to xmlhack.com.

Keith Jenkins, new metadata librarian at Mann Library, was introduced.

In February, John Fereira, Programmer/Analyst at Mann Library, will discuss uPortal.

In March, Naomi Dushay, Programmer/Analyst in the Digital Library Research Group, will present "Visualization and Digital Libraries."

St. Laurent described the evolution of XML toward increasing complexity and unwieldiness with the introduction of the W3C XML Schema (WXS), and its widespread adoption by the software industry. He situated this development in the context of WC3 (WWW Consortium) politics and the influence of "dataheads." St. Laurent presented an alternative schema language for XML -- RELAX NG -- as a means of avoiding, and cleaning up, XML clutter (the Play Station Hazmat team in his slides is a visual metaphor for this clean-up function). As a measure of RELAX NG's usefulness, St. Laurent noted that W3C itself now uses it instead of its own specification for certain internal XML work. St. Laurent's slide show (linked from this page) describes in some detail the advantages he sees in RELAX NG structures and syntax over other schemas.

St. Laurent's presentation drew on his experience using RELAX NG in his work as a book editor. He reports that, despite the dominance of WXS in the larger environment, he does not encounter significant compatibility issues using RELAX NG. He uses Trang, open source software that converts between different XML schema languages, including RELAX NG and WXS, to facilitate communication.

St. Laurent also discussed the Schematron language, which was designed as a complement to other schemas, including WXS and RELAX NG. Her recommended it as a tool for small, precision tasks -- a feather duster to the RELAX NG Hazmat team.

Discussion following the presentation centered on RELAX NG's long-term prospects as a competitive alternative schema.

St. Laurent brought along several O'Reilly books (on XML, RELAX NG, RDF) that were presented as door prizes to attendees in the first-ever MD-WG raffle.