Re: Help Needed

I'm not entirely sure everyone is using the same meaning for XML(?)

If it is the W3C standard eXtensible Markup Language - then I am very
confused what the problem could be with using it for configuration.

The only consideration that would cause problems that I can think of is that
your software would have to have include an XML Reader.
(The last thing you would want to do is handcraft something to deal with all
the complexity of the XML standard.)
However - once you have a standards compliant XML reader available then
using XML is surely a breeze?

It is infinitely configurable for hierarchical requirements,
is (or can be) human readable,
includes built-in support for cross-referencing other elements and
validating it's own format,
and is platform and language independent.
It is designed purely for the requirement of tagging information (although
usually documents rather than arbitrary binary data) unambiguously and
transferring it between systems.

I use it for configuring everything I do - and almost every other recent
system I have come across also uses XML for its configuration information.

If someone has a problem using it for this purpose then this would strongly
suggest they are doing something wrong.

If they are trying to use it for persistent serialization of program objects
on a filing system then there are very likely to be binary parts that would
require some extra work
and could require very careful encoding or handling when passing down an XML
processing chain to make sure that the binary data is not corrupted.

But apart from that I can't think of anything that would cause a problem.

So - if the W3C is the XML we are talking about - can someone educate me
with an example of where XML falls short of requirements for configuration
files?



2009/3/21 Robin Berjon <[email protected]>

> On Mar 21, 2009, at 03:49 , Liam Quin wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 08:55:19AM -0400, pDale wrote:
> >> While this should be off-topic (not about XML), let us take this
> >> opportunity
> >> to say again, just in case anyone doesn't know:
> >>
> >> Do not use XML files for program configuration!
> >
> > Let's not say such silly things.
>
> No! Let's!
>
> I think the issue is largely that XML is pretty bad as a configuration
> syntax, but the alternatives are at best just as bad. It's donkeys all
> the way down. Configuration is overrated anyway, if it worked on the
> developer's computer there's no reason other can't use the same setup.
>
> --
> Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/
>     Feel like hiring me? Go to http://robineko.com/
>
>
>
>
>
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