[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
• From: David Lyon <david.lyon@c...>
• Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:09:32 -0500
• In-reply-to: <42042648.3020504@m...>
• References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0501280904130.20504-100000@s...> <4204023D.8000401@o...> <42042648.3020504@m...>
• User-agent: KMail/1.7.1

On Friday 04 February 2005 08:50 pm, Elliotte Harold wrote:
> Bob Foster wrote:
> > A reasonable pov, probably represents the majority, I just don't agree
> > with it. A barrier to entry is a barrier to entry. The fact that it's
> > hard to write an XML parser means it's hard to understand how to use
> > XML, too.
>
> The bottom line is I don't find any arguments based on the difficulty of
> parsing XML to be really compelling, given that we have existence proofs
> that correct, efficient parsing of XML is possible.

Even in a reduced complexity style of xml such as:

 <Company Information>
  Organisation_Name&="Faulty Towers Hotel"
  Country_Code&="UK"
  Damage_bill_pw$=4000.40
  Insurance_reject_date@=2005-02-21
 </Company Information>

there can be a lot of complexity.

Yes, a uni student could do something simple in a week. But getting
systems that use it to be production stable, able to handle commercial
amounts of data and provide subsecond response times take a fair
degree of skill.

Even in one simple element, for example, currencies, Germans
and French express theirs with a comma for the decimal. Whilst
Americans + Australians and others use a period.

so in Germany (after an imaginary currency conversion) we would have:

 Damage_bill_pwâ?¬=2000,20
 Damage_bill_pw$=4000.40

yes, simple enough for a graduate to write a 20 line program for
in their local country, but writing a proper parser is truly in the league
of the professionals.

Then, multiply the number of records by 50000 and demand that
your parser runs quickly - and suddenly you find that there aren't that
many people out there wanting to do it commercially.

and I didn't even get to explaining how much of a hobby job it is
not to add in the xpath like support..... and make that run fast enough...
but I'm sure people get the picture....

David

-- 
Computergrid : The ones with the most connections win.

• References:
  • Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
    • From: Bob Foster <bob@o...>
  • Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
    • From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>

• Prev by Date: Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
• Next by Date: How simple is simple enough? - was Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
• Previous by thread: Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
• Next by thread: How simple is simple enough? - was Re: xml 2.0 - so it's on the way after all?
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread