data design

[Imbaud Pierre]

The applications I write are made of, lets say, algorithms and data.
I mean constant data, dicts, tables, etc: to keep algorithms simple,
describe what is peculiar, data dependent, as data rather than "case
statements". These could be called configuration data.

The lazy way to do this: have modules that initialize bunches of
objects, attributes holding the data: the object is somehow the row of
the "table", attribute names being the column. This is the way I
proceeded up to now.
Data input this way are almost "configuration data", with 2 big
drawbacks:
  - Only a python programmer can fix the file: this cant be called a
    configuration file.
  - Even for the author, these data aint easy to maintain.

I feel pretty much ready to change this:
- make these data true text data, easier to read and fix.
- write the module that will make python objects out of these data:
the extra cost should yield ease of use.

2 questions arise:
- which kind of text data?
     - csv: ok for simple attributes, not easy for lists or complex
     data.
     - xml: the form wont be easier to read than python code,
       but an xml editor could be used, and a formal description
       of what is expected can be used.
- how can I make the data-to-object transformation both easy, and able
   to spot errors in text data?

Last, but not least: is there a python lib implementing at least part
of this dream?