[Tutor] preliminary app design question

[Richard Querin]

I am planning to write a program (or series of programs) and want some
advice beforehand. I've written a few small programs with Python and
wxPython, but nothing very complex. I want to write a suite of in-house
structural engineering design programs for my own purposes. I want to do the
following:

- write each program independently as a standalone structural design app
- design and write the programs in such a way that in the future I can
create a project app that would link all these smaller apps together (to
store a bunch of these different designs under a single project for
instance)
- I want the input/output of each program to be easily adaptable and
readable by the 'project app' in the future
- I would want the individual programs to have file formats that are easily
extensible as I add features to them
- The 'project app' would have to be extensible in that I could link smaller
apps to it as I create them and it should be able to handle revisions to
these smaller apps as I make them.

Obviously this won't happen right away, I would likely develop each small
design app as a standalone and then when I've got 3 or 4 done I would tie
them together with the project app.

My question before I start is whether or not using an XML format for the
individual file formats is the way to go, and if I have to anticipate every
little thing in the file formats before hand. I don't want to do this, I
would rather like to be able to just add and modify things as I go with the
least amount of hassle along the way. Any ideas on how to generally approach
the file formats?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have zero experience with XML at this point, and very modest experience
with Python/wxPython, but necessity is the mother of invention and I can
learn what I need to know I think.
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