From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 09:40:44 -0500 From: Dan Cross To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] More 'Sam I am' Message-ID: <20060210144044.GP1620@augusta.math.psu.edu> References: <200602100947.k1A9lrbK018110@skeeve.com> <5b97145453ee85399851dd5284e4d7a9@quintile.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <5b97145453ee85399851dd5284e4d7a9@quintile.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Topicbox-Message-UUID: f97462b0-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 10:45:34AM +0000, Steve Simon wrote: > Sounds to me like an application for these: > > Rob Pike, Structural Regular Expressions > http://netlib.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/87/3-se.ps.gz That's part of the story, but again, I don't think it's sufficient. Don't get me wrong; you can do a lot with hierarchical data using SRE's, but it may not be sufficient. Then again, it may. It all depends on the problem at hand. As for Smart People, XML, Corporate IT, and all the rest.... It's really true that sometimes you're handed things that you have no control over. Sometimes you're forced to pick the lesser of two evils. Would you pick XML or ASN.1 if those were the only two options? If the pointy-haired powers that be are mandating one or the other and, ``neither'' isn't in the range of possible solutions? Sometimes, it's not worth fighting those battles.... - Dan C.