[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Pythonmac-SIG digest, Vol 1 #739 - 7 msgs

[Jack Jansen]

> Actually, I program for a living, thank you, and am plagued with the 
> tendency to call bullshit for what it is. Swallow the XML hype and 
> then make a living out of it if you can find someone gullible enough 
> to buy in, but I am not aware of anything in XML that isn't a rehash 
> of what was being done 10 years ago with most any database and some 
> SGML if need be.

XML has one *huge* advantage over the various other standards that were out 
there: people are actually using it! And that means that I can get at the 
inside of their fileformat!

Take the IB discussion as an example: the fact that it's internal file format 
(or one of its internal file formats, according to recent reports) is in XML 
means that I can take the info and do something with it.

Take the MacPython build process as another example: as CodeWarrior can read 
projects in XML format I can now automatically generate the project files for 
all the extension modules. This has saved me *days* when I started with the 
Python port. Yes, before the XML project files this functionality was 
available through AppleScript, but it was just too cumbersome.

The rendering part of XML is just icing on the cake, the real exciting news is 
that there's now a universally accepted language to describe and transport 
data structures. And I know that it's still quite impossible to transport data 
from one program to another, even with the most elaborate stylesheet 
transforms, but that'll come. For now I'm happy that I can at least parse the 
data and generate it.
--
Jack Jansen             | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com | ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
www.oratrix.nl/~jack    | see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm