[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Pythonmac-SIG digest, Vol 1 #739 - 7 msgs

[tom smith]

> The Flash suggestion has some merit, altho I think that XML is just
> another example of internet banality that seeks to imitate what you
> could do on any desktop with a tab-delimited file a decade ago, but
> is packaged as some kind of intellectual breakthru.

Not that this is great xml, but doing this with a tab delimited file
wouldn't exactly be straightforward....

<people>
<person url="http://www.othermedia.com/blog">
<realname>Tom Smith</realname>
    <likes>
        <item style="ale">beer</item>
        <item style="balti">curry</item>
        <item style="oo">python</item>
    </likes>
    <loves style="unpopular" kind="unrequited">Visual Programming</loves>
</person>
</people>

...You'd have to explain how each bit of your tabbed text fitted together
and how to get the relevant bit out....I'd get it wrong, get frustrated,
bored and go somewhere else... Xml lets you define structured information
much easier than tabbed files.

Also, I almost definitely wouldn't get round to writing the code that could
decide if a lump of tabbed text was in the <people> format. I'd just assume
it was.

Xml isn't an intellectual breakthrough and I think you're right, it's too
finickety at times for it's own good, and the fact that html coders rely on
html parsers being humane and forgiving will slow it's uptake, perhaps kill
it even. But till then, it's all we've got and in lots of ways it's better
than what we had

tom




-- 
tom smith | tom@othermedia.com
http://www.othermedia.com/blog
tel 020 8541 5355  | fax 020 8541 5507
11 penrhyn road, kingston-upon-thames, london KT1 2BZ