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Re: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he 'd be

• To: Greg Alvord <Greg.Alvord@g...>
• Subject: Re: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he 'd be better off as a crossing guard
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 14:13:32 -0700
• Cc: 'Bill de hÓra' <bill@d...>, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@y...>, xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: Message from Greg Alvord <Greg.Alvord@g...> of "Thu, 27 Mar 2003 18:16:51 CST." <1B17F62CE5189F49984F76841FF2F132FF0E04@m...>
• Sender: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

> Bill de hÃ?ra Wrote:
> >And I don't understand this disdain for regular expressions over 
> >XML. Regexes are a perfectly useful tool for manipulating text.
> 
> Certainly "If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail."
> applies here. (No distain, I own more than one hammer)
> 
> Yes, XML can be serialized into a string.  That feature makes it portable. 
> 
> But to manipulate it as a string makes it impossible to take advantage of
> properties the XML had to begin with.
> 
> There are two worlds. The world of the "value space" and that of the
> "lexical space".  If you use a lexical space tool you run the risk of making
> a new lexical representation for which there is NO value space equivalent.
> 
> In other words, could you make an error with a regEx tool and end up with
> invalid XML?  Yes easily, and probably often.
> 
> If you use tools that manipulate in the "value space", then obtain the
> lexical representation that risk goes away.

Bingo.  Thus my 'impedance mismatch" and "error prone" comments.  Believe me, 
in my travels I've seen a lot of ersatz XML processing.  I've always been able 
to convince clients to chuck it, usuallya fter I demonstrate that there are 
ways to process XML just as easily as they think their hacks allow.  So my 
incredulous reaction was not because I haven't heard this claim of "regex 
first", but because it seems amazing to me that this would come from Tim.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he 'd be better off as a crossing guard
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

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  • RE: Re: If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd be better off as a crossing guard
    • From: Greg Alvord <Greg.Alvord@g...>

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