XML Considered Harmful

[alister]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2021 13:12:10 -0500, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

> On the prolog thread, somebody posted a link to:
> <https://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html>
> 
> One thing that it tangentially says is "XML is not the answer."
> 
> I read this page right when I was about to write an XML parser to get
> data into the code for a research project I'm working on.
> It seems to me that XML is the right approach for this sort of thing,
> especially since the data is hierarchical in nature.
> 
> Does the advice on that page mean that I should find some other way to
> get data into my programs, or does it refer to some kind of misuse/abuse
> of XML for something that it wasn't designed for?
> 
> If XML is not the way to package data, what is the recommended approach?

1'st can I say don't write your own XML parser, there are already a 
number of existing parsers that should do everything you will need.  This 
is a wheel that does not need re-inventing.

2nd if you are not generating the data then you have to use whatever data 
format you are supplied

as far as I can see the main issue with XML is bloat, it tries to do too 
many things & is a very verbose format, often the quantity of mark-up can 
easily exceed the data contained within it.

other formats such a JSON & csv have far less overhead, although again 
not always suitable.

As in all such cases it is a matter of choosing the most apropriate tool 
for the job in hand. 

 




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	The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.