[Omaha.pm] Suggested XML modules...

[Jay Hannah]

On May 13, 2009, at 12:23 PM, Rob Townley wrote:
> tree vs serial processing is one thing, but just curious if you have
> tried creating your own xml namespace to save memory?

Eeek. Save memory? How?

I hate XML namespaces with a passion. How our @vendors use them here is

    <Name>
       <customer:FirstName>Jay</customer:FirstName>
    </Name>
    <Name>
       <pet:FirstName>Tipper</pet:FirstName>
    </Name>

Then the FirstName node is defined multiple times in the XML schemas/ 
DTD/XSD/whatever, once for each of the "customer" and "pet" namespaces.

Conceptually, maybe this isn't the worst idea ever.

In practice, tons of XML tools* suddenly can't cope with cascading  
insanity at all, refuse to even parse XML, core dump, etc. As a dev  
it becomes insanely frustrating to track down what's going on. You  
lock yourself permanently into a massively bloated and expensive XML  
tool like XML Spy. Writing your own serializers? It can still be  
done, but you have to jump *so* many more hoops now.

* XML::Twig seems to do OK, but we don't ask it to validate.

Just say no.

Ick.

Has anyone had a good experience with XML namespaces?

$0.02,

j