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RE: XML and mainframes, yet again (was RE: Some comm

• To: "'Elliotte Rusty Harold'" <elharo@m...>,"'Champion, Mike'" <Mike.Champion@S...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: XML and mainframes, yet again (was RE: Some comments on the 1.1 draft)
• From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 23:54:04 -0000
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <p04330100b840f557d186@[192.168.254.4]>
• Reply-to: <michael.h.kay@n...>

> The issue is not IBM databases and never has been. The issue is that
> IBM has some brain damaged text editors that insert a #x85 every time
> you hit the return key instead of inserting a #xA or #xD or both.
> Files created with these editors are not well-formed XML without an
> additional conversion pass. Similarly, IBM has some programming
> languages and tools that generate a #x85 when they do a println() or
> that language's equivalent.  That's all.

This isn't brain-damaged, it's just based on a different conceptual model.
Mainframes (not only IBM) generally store files as a sequence of records,
where a record is any sequence of bytes: any bytes. Such a file cannot be
readily translated into a UNIX-style file that is a simple sequence of bytes
without losing the record boundaries. It's therefore entirely natural that a
text editor in such an environment should represent a record boundary in a
way that is different from a byte that can appear within a record.

The fact that most of the world adopted the UNIX-style file model rather
than the mainframe style is a historical accident that doesn't make either
style wrong, let alone "brain-dead". I don't know whether it's right now
that XML should make accommodations for this minority of the IT community,
but it's certainly a reasonable proposition to argue.

Mike Kay

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: XML and mainframes, yet again (was RE: Some comments on the 1.1 draft)
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

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  • Re: XML and mainframes, yet again (was RE: Some comments on the 1.1 draft)
    • From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>

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