Mike Orr wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 05:58:22PM -0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > It's certainly hard to define what convenience is where XML processing is > > concerned. Personally, I'm more and more against converting XML documents to > > other representations (or accessing them as those representations), > > Funny, I'm becoming more and more convinced not to use XML at all, and > if you have to (e.g., to exchange data with unknown systems, or to let > users edit data in a flat text file), limit the XML to just those > subsystems. > > XML is wonderful in theory, but in practice it takes something that > should be simple and makes it ridiculously complicated. Why should I > spend hours learning a strange new language (DOM) just to get a few tags > out of my file, or another new language (XSLT) to do template-like > substitutions (I already have Cheetah), or a third new language (xpath) > to avoid DOM? Or if I use SAX I have to set up callbacks and piece the > portions of the value together. In the time it takes to learn DOM and > XSLT, I could have my application already done.
I guess it's something like, "make sure all input is in a form you know is parsable, get the users all used to giving you data in more or less one form, and then write all the filters you'll use in your next projects. Of course I see no reason why the filters have to be W3-approved, and I do rather agree with Cheetah's contention that it's much easier to figure out the logic of their non-XML programming than to decipher more XML-within-XML blather. > I just wish pyRXP was available a few years ago when the XML tools for > Python first came out. I bet there's a huge class of Python XML > applications that could get by with pyRXL for input and 'print' or > your template system of choice for output, without ever having to > touch DOM, XSLT or SAX at all. And that the lack of such a tool has > held back the number of XML-aware Python applications by a significant > amount. Well, just try adding validation to your project and you find yourself adding 2 or 3 more kits (and having to learn them, of course). Still makes me wonder how people get away without validation, but someone at 4Suite assures me it's relatively rare for people to validate. -- Bill Eldridge Radio Free Asia [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Webware-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webware-discuss
