Re: [9fans] xml

[David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com>]

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On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 7:47 AM, hugo rivera <uair00@gmail.com> wrote:

> Now that I had a closer look to xml files, I think I get the main idea.
> From my point of view, xml doesn't seem so bad after all (please,
> please, this is just an uninformed opinion) but perhaps in the future
> I'll be able to see its defects.
>
> --
> Hugo
>
>
What XML buys you is a bunch of tools that already work for about half of
what you'd want a language tool to do.  By this I mean there's parsers
already written, and lots of libraries to examine the tags at different
levels in a hierarchy or stream of XML data.

You still have to define the meaning of each tag, attribute and tagged text.
 For validation of documents in XML there's other XML technologies like
Schemas you can use, or you could describe the valid set of tags in a DTD.

To add to the madness you can write XML files that translate XML files to
other files (possibly other XML files) in an XML defined language called
XSLT.  XSLT is a bit like writing in a functional programming language with
the worst syntax possible :-).

The reason I say "worst syntax possible" is that the amount of typing you'll
do to express something simple in XML is pretty excessive.

Eventually you'll find that the entire world became a nail for the XML
hammer and that things like SOAP, XML-RPC, are just not very good due to the
fact that sending XML documents on a wire for simple RPC calls is grossly
inefficient, and there's a lot better technology out there for these sorts
of things.

That said, XML is still here, and you kind of have to learn to play ball
with it.  I just had a discussion with a coworker about a configuration
language for a management project here at work and had to argue in XML's
defense (customers will more easily understand and be able to accept an XML
language than whatever new cute DSL we come up with).

I feel like I need a shower now.

Dave

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