I've actually thought quite a bit about this subject as my area of expertise is xml, although I don't really use Rebol anymore I think the following would be a good approach:
integrate support for some open source libraries for handling xml, my suggestion would be support for libxml and libxslt as well (given that for certain forms of xml xslt is the best tool). Do not bake any further support for xml into the parse-xml. Why not? Because parse-xml will currently accept non-valid, not well formed xml and provide a simple parser for it. This is a strength as long as one also has a parser for providing validity checking and other commonly required functionality. instances of some of the more common xml dialects one encounters have the distressing habit of not being well-formed, for example various versions of RSS, parse-xml provides a simple way to work with that. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > PeterWAWood > Sent: 20 December 2004 11:52 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [REBOL] XML support in Rebol > > In an interview at O'Reilly's OnJava (HYPERLINK > "http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/12/15/erh-interview.html"http://www > .onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/12/15/erh-interview.html), Elliotte Rusty > Harold, THE Java XML man (HYPERLINK > "http://www.cafeaulait.org"http://www.cafeaulait.org , HYPERLINK > "http://www.cafeconleche.org"http://www.cafeconleche.org) makes a number of > good points about XML: > > "Perl lagged for several years in the XML space because it wasn't yet > Unicode-savy, and Larry Wall first had to Unicode-enable Perl before he (or > anyone else) could think seriously about supporting XMll." > > "One of the major impedance mismatches between Java and XML is that a Java > char is not in fact a Unicode character; rather it is a UTF-16 code point." > > "Lisp programmers wear different glasses; they insist on seeing XML as > simply S-expressions with angle brackets instead of parentheses, a model > that's only marginally closer to reality." > > "The only proper way to approach XML is by understanding and accepting its > unique structure without trying to force it to fit some other paradigm, be > that paradigm objects, S-expressions, records and fields, or something > else." > > Of course, XML isn't a patch on Rebol values when it comes to swapping data > between different platform. It is however getting to be used more and more > often in system-to-system interconnectivity. > > Is the XML support good enough for Rebol to be used as a "universal system > connector"? > > Regards > > Peter > > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.0 - Release Date: 17/12/2004 > > > > -- > To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to rebol-request > at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject. > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.0 - Release Date: 17/12/2004 > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.0 - Release Date: 17/12/2004 > > > -- > To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to rebol-request > at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject. > > -- To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to rebol-request at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject.
