At 12:03 PM 10/2/04 -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote:
Guido> This reveals IMO a big mistake in thinking about configuration Guido> files. The most important user of a config file is not the Guido> programmer who has to get data out of it; the most important user Guido> is the user who has to edit the config file. The outrageous Guido> verbosity of XML makes the above example a complete usability Guido> liability.
Agreed.
What about YaML? It's human readable/editable and uses indentation to denote structure instead of <tags>. I'd Google for a reference but I'm off-net at the moment.
YaML isn't very friendly to non-techies, IMO. I consider it a very good human *readable* format, but not a human *writable* format. I honestly have an easier time writing XML than YaML, because there are fewer symbols to remember, the format is more regular, and I don't have to think as hard about what the processor is looking for. Of course, I *definitely* prefer .ini files to XML, if they are sufficient for the use case.