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I don't see this article as arguing for XML as a data management tool...
That is exactly what he is arguing when he says that allowing the XML data type in SQL Server is "the right thing to do."
By allowing XML into your SQL Server databases, you are effectively relegating SQL Server to the role of XML staging area. A database is only as "relational" as its logical design. You will be throwing out the relational model's benefits and trusting in the "XML model" whatever that is... Which is the reason for my question earlier. I challenge anyone to give a satisfactory answer that doesn't rely on generalizations, platitudes and marketing-speak!
Sure XML can be used as a rather cheap (not inexpensive) shortcut, but eventually you, or rather your company will pay for the shortcuts you take in the form of system overhead, maintainability, and worst of all, data chaos.
It is the height of irony that XML proponents insist that XML is "more flexible" than a properly designed relational database. Inflexibility was one of the major reasons that the hierarchical database has gone the way of the Dodo...only to be reborn in the form of XML. "Those who will not learn from the past..."
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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