There is a good article in InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/990329xml.htm titled: "XML buoys databases for corporate markets Web and XML keep object-oriented databases afloat in a world gone relational" by: Brett Mendel This may be a good basic reference to put in zope to promote the OOP point of view. I like this: ***copy "I think it's a matter of efficiency, compactness, and directness," said Rita Knox, vice president and research director at the Gartner Group, in Stamford, Conn. "It's not that these things can't be done with an RDBMS, it's just much more efficient with an ODBMS." RDBMSes, for example, use rows and columns for every instance in the database, regardless of whether a particular cell is needed in a particular instance; ODBMSes only store the particular parts of the data actually used in any specific instance, Knox explained. ***end copy- bobo connor bob@rocnet.com