[Classiccity-pm] Re: Classiccity-pm Digest, Vol 8, Issue 8

[Sam Feltus]

I am suspicious in many cases XML is a Gross Violation of the KISS principle.
 
This is an amateur observation, but seems Computer Programming is cursed with a Tower of Babel culture.  Seems to me most XML documents could be replaced with the passing of a string or a text file.
 
Sam the Gardener
 
Peanut gallery opinion, :)

classiccity-pm-request at mail.pm.org wrote:
Send Classiccity-pm mailing list submissions to
classiccity-pm at mail.pm.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/classiccity-pm
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
classiccity-pm-request at mail.pm.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
classiccity-pm-owner at mail.pm.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Classiccity-pm digest..."


Today's Topics:

1. XML is too hard for programmers (Darrell Golliher)
2. Re: XML is too hard for programmers (Jonathan Daugherty)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:02:04 -0500
From: Darrell Golliher 
Subject: [Classiccity-pm] XML is too hard for programmers
To: classiccity-pm at mail.pm.org
Message-ID: <20040216160204.GA8953 at golliher.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii


Saw this posted elsewhere and it pretty much sums up my thoughts on
the subject. I wondered if you guys have found XML nirvanna and care
to share it with the rest of us..

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/03/16/XML-Prog

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:02:56 -0500
From: Jonathan Daugherty 
Subject: Re: [Classiccity-pm] XML is too hard for programmers
To: "All purpose mailing list for Athens, Ga Perl Mongers"

Message-ID: <20040216160256.GA4228 at mail.theserver.ath.cx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

# Saw this posted elsewhere and it pretty much sums up my thoughts on
# the subject. I wondered if you guys have found XML nirvanna and care
# to share it with the rest of us..
# 
# http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/03/16/XML-Prog

A good read. On occasion I get the bright idea to use XML as a basis
for a config file or something. When I do, the first step is always
deciding which parsing model to use -- event-driven or DOM-style --
and rarely does one or the other fit very well with the design of my
program, chiefly because:

1) Event-driven parsing requires the implementation of a small handful
of handlers for various parsing events, all of which will hopefully
operate on some data structure. This is usually trivial, but
depending on the implementation language this may be a really bad
design choice.

2) DOM-style parsing generally results in a really nasty, difficult-to-
use data structure. This is true for some APIs in Perl, Python, C,
and C++. QT has what I think is the nicest C++ API, and some of
the python modules are nice, too. The dom-style xml stuff I've done
in perl always leaves me with an uneasy feeling. I always have to
use Data::Dumper to figure out what the fuck is going on.

One of the things about xml work that annoys me is that there are
tons of different APIs for doing it, and most of them differ only by
small degree. And some of them just make things more kludgy, like
adding a new class or set of functions to operate on nodes in an
XML tree, etc. On many occasions I have simply decided that using
XML wasn't worth the effort, and I've gone with an X resource file or
something similar.

So I guess I don't have anything new to offer -- I'm just complaining
since the article reminded me how much of a love-hate relationship I
have with XML.

-- 

Jonathan Daugherty
http://www.cprogrammer.org

"It's a book about a Spanish guy called Manual, you should read it."
-- Dilbert

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Classiccity-pm mailing list
Classiccity-pm at mail.pm.org
http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/classiccity-pm


End of Classiccity-pm Digest, Vol 8, Issue 8
********************************************


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/classiccity-pm/attachments/20040216/9ab39c41/attachment.htm