On Mar 12, 2007, at 2:11 PM, Michael Busch wrote:
I think our best option here is to have a closed XML file for the
index format/configuration (something like you sent in your other
mail) plus a binary file for custom index-level metadata like Grant
suggested.
Why the binary file?
Btw, I'm not really familiar with YAML. Maybe you could explain
briefly why you chose YAML over XML in KinoSearch?
First, it's more readable.
Second, it's designed for exactly this purpose. It's a data
serialization language. (YAML officially stands for "YAML ain't
markup language".) XML can handle this task, but not as elegantly.
Third, it's ubiquitous in both the Perl and the Ruby communities.
It's very close as JSON as well, so anybody who's done Javascript/
AJAX programming can grok it -- but even if you have no experience
with it, the fundamentals are easily grasped. It's got sufficient
market penetration that it isn't going anywhere, so there's nothing
to be gained by going with the relatively more-established XML. It
has its flaws, chiefly having to do with how it handles very complex
data, but XML has the same problem, and the kind of data we're
talking about is pretty simple.
Last, it's a bit more compact, though that wasn't a major consideration.
Marvin Humphrey
Rectangular Research
http://www.rectangular.com/
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