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At 1:09 PM -0500 1/15/02, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: >I think you are confusing XML with XMl data and XML practise. > >You are correct that in many applications, tag names/attributes add >value to the data. That has nothing to do with XML *itself*... just >the way people use it. > I think you're ignoring XML practice in order to win an increasingly obscure and irrelevant point. It's not hard to prove that you can transform any XML document into CSV or vice versa. In other words, a 1-1 onto mapping exists. Unfortunately, the way people use these formats is important. Mathematical equivalence is not the same as practical equivalence. In the real world, XML documents, carry a lot more metadata and information than CSV documents do. In the real world, CSV documents are prone to data corruption in a way XML documents aren't. In the real world, it's easier for people to write and read XML documents than CSV documents. In the real world, it's easier for programmers to write code that deals correctly with XML than with CSV. In the real world, it's easier to detect the inevitable problems that do arise with any format with XML than with CSV. In the real world, XML wins. -- +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@m... | Writer/Programmer | +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001) | | http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://www.cafeaulait.org/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
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