ABSTRACT
The organization of this chapter follows: Section 17.2 summarizes the contents of this book. The summaries from Chapters 2 to 16 are now put together to form an overall summary. Section 17.3 mentions the challenges and directions for XML, databases, and the semantic Web. Some of the challenges and directions for Web data management discussed in [THUR00] are reviewed because XML and Web databases go hand in hand. Then I add some new directions with respect to XML and the semantic Web. Finally, Section 17.4 gives suggestions to the reader as to where to go from here. Some of the key points in this book are reiterated, and then the reader is encouraged to take advantage of XML and the semantic Web.
