On 17/01/16 10:07, Chris Green wrote: [...] > It's still *awful*. Compare it with a standard .conf file such as > ntp.conf:-
I'd take XML *any* day over that kind of stuff. > Apart from anything else editing an XML file is a pain because of all > the </> characters *and* you have to enter keywords twice at the > beginning and end of a block. You may have been misled (as many programmers are) into using a dumb editor instead of one that understands XML syntax. No user should ever have to type the markup characters, or even see them. > No half decent programming language > makes things so difficult for the programmer. But XML isn't a programming language; it's a markup language. This is a common misunderstanding in the programming community. I've even had people ask me how they can get XML to do their math -- a bit like asking someone how to write your thesis in C++ :-) > XML, if it's needed, should always be hidden from the user/programmer > by some sort of parser. Absolutely, always. The user should never see pointy brackets: they're for parsers and for people like me who have to deal with the dirty bits inside XML documents. Any half-decent interface should hide them and present a sensible layout. Unfortunately, no such editors exist yet; even the (quite good) XML editors for authoring still demand far too much foreknowledge. Maybe one day... We should stop here...we're going off-topic... ///Peter -- xubuntu-users mailing list xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-users