Bitter connections and coupling - Bitter Java - page 205

A NECDOTAL EVIDENCE : “We should connect via interface version
12.23.345.” “You can't change that field length without six levels of man-
agement approval, because you will break everyone.” “We can have the
nine-digit ZIP code ready for testing in two years.”
S YMPTOMS , CONSEQUENCES : Multiple versions of the same interface is a
tell-tale characteristic. Interface support that significantly lags the capabilities
of both the client and server systems is another symptom of this problem.
XML Misuse
R ELATED ANTIPATTERNS : This antipattern is a subset of the Golden
Hammer antipattern in AntiPatterns , since we are applying an ill-suited
technology to a purpose.
D ESCRIPTION : XML , like many powerful technologies, can be misused. In
this case, we're using XML to do large-scale search or summary missions.
R EFACTORED SOLUTION NAME : Databases, Indexed XML , or other
appropriate technologies.
R EFACTORED SOLUTION TYPE : Software or technology.
R EFACTORED SOLUTION DESCRIPTION : XML indexing solutions or rela-
tional databases are better technology fits for these problems.
T YPICAL CAUSES : This antipattern is caused by the assumptions that some
convenience facilities in XML are scalable and robust, which is not neces-
sarily their intent.
S YMPTOMS , CONSEQUENCES : Applications using XML to do significant
sorting or summarizing perform poorly.
Rigid XML
D ESCRIPTION : Some design choices can restrict the extensibility of XML .
Namespaces can collide and some constructs are more restrictive than
others.
R EFACTORED SOLUTION NAME : Extensible, Flexible XML .
R EFACTORED SOLUTION TYPE : Software.
R EFACTORED SOLUTION DESCRIPTION : Design choices can affect the
flexibility of XML . In general, we should use namespaces to control colli-
sions, prefer types to elements in a schema, use dangling types or anyType
for implementations of variable content containers, and limit the impact of
XML versioning by observing best practices.