Re: The impact of data format selection on application development
Michael Kay <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.text.xml.devel |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
> > Little languages provide a powerful way to quickly implement robust tools. > > Reading the book made me keenly aware of one thing: The XML data format is complex! Compare the densely written 36-page XML specification (plus the 16-page namespace specification) to this three-sentence specification of a data format: > > The data format consists of lines. Each line contains fields. Fields are separated by a delimiter (space, tab, comma, etc.). > In my opinion that's a lousy specitication, and lousy specifications like that account for an immense about of trouble in our industry. What's missing? * It doesn't say what a line is. How are lines separated or terminated? * What on earth does "etc." mean? * It says how fields are separated, but it doesn't say what can appear within them. What happens when the value of a field contains a separator? * It says nothing about character encoding. * Does every line have to contain the same number of fields? * Can fields be empty? The only reason the specification is short is that it's woefully incomplete. Michael Kay Saxonica _______________________________________________________________________ XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS to support XML implementation and development. To minimize spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting. [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/ Or unsubscribe: [email protected] subscribe: [email protected] List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php