Re: [XML Bastard] XML Sucks! Fork You! No! Fork Yourself!

From: Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Date: Tue Mar 06 2001 - 06:02:59 PST


John Klassa wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, "Brian" == Brian Clapper wrote:
>
> Brian> That's as may be, but XML is a crappy configuration file syntax
> Brian> to foist on people. The one thing I dislike about "ant" is
> Brian> that its build file is in XML. It's a highly annoying and
> Brian> inappropriate syntax to have to read and edit. If you're going
> Brian> to make someone edit a configuration file by hand (as opposed
> Brian> to supplying a UI or translator that hides the XML), why not
> Brian> choose a syntax that's less visually cluttered and easier to
> Brian> read?
>
> *Exactly*! :-)
>
> --
> John Klassa / klassa@mail.com

Suggest something. Something like IETF headers? With the new CMIP
rules (mainly to avoid the silly restrictions on line length and
annoying continuance stuff) it's ok for flat things. What about
sections (a la .ini files)?

It is conceivable that a consensus could be built for some simple
equivalence for simple cases that could allow full XML for nesting,
extension, and more complicated cases.

I think many involved in XML assume you'll use a nice editor to hide the
syntax.

It's not that much of a stretch to say that if you are outside any tags
or inside a specially tagged area, IETF headers or .ini format or
whatever are syntactically equivalent to simple XML tagging. Getting
everyone to change their parsers is another story, however for config
situations you only need the parsing in the app to be extended.

sdw

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