lxml/ElementTree and .tail

[Paul McGuire]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.412.1163853827.32031.python-list at python.org...
> Paul McGuire wrote:
>
>> maybe time to switch to decaf... :)
>
> do you disagree with my characterization of the state of the XML universe?
>
> </F>
>
Thankfully, I'm largely on the periphery of that universe (except for being 
a sometimes victim).  But it is certainly frustrating to see many of the OMG 
concepts of the 90's reimplemented in Java services, and then again in 
XML/SOAP, with no detectable awareness that these messaging and 
serialization problems have been considered before, and much more 
thoroughly.

I liked XML when I could read it and hack it out in Notepad.  I like 
attributes, which puts me on the outs with most XML zealots who forswear the 
use of attributes on purely academic grounds (they defeat the future 
possible expansion of an attribute's value into more complex substructure). 
I dislike namespaces, especially the default xmlns kind, as they make me 
take extra steps when retrieving nodes via Xpaths; and everyone seems to 
think their application needs namespaces, when there is no threat that these 
tags will ever get mixed up with anyone else's.

No, I was mostly amused (which I thought was your intent, given the trailing 
smiley) at your breathless, quasi-rant against the XML milieu in general - I 
think your one sentence went on for about 15 lines!

-- Paul