XML not public (Was: C source viewer/mapper?)

[Mike Meyer]

Dave Kuhlman <dkuhlman at rexx.com> writes:

> By generating XML, you are in effect making the output of your parser public.

That's a lie propogated by XML proponents and those wishing to claim
openness for proprietary data formats. It's equivalent to saying that
by generating ASCII, I'm in effect making the output of the parser
public.

XML - and ASCII - attach fixed meanings to various syntactic features
of the data. Knowing those features is not sufficient to understand or
process the data intelligently. You have to know the semantic meaning
of the variables in the fixed syntax before you can do that. You can't
even decide if a given bit of XML is valid output without having a
DTD.

That being said, you can get a lot of good from having parts of the
syntax fixed to a common standard. For ASCII, you get to use things
like standardized numeric<->string conversions. For XML, you get
libraries that will turn the flat XML text into structured objects,
transform the data, and even let you edit it in a user-friendly
manner. These are all good things, and make XML a good choice over a
proprietary format if all other things are equal.

        <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.