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On May 21, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Bob Walkden wrote:
>>> What alternative would you suggest? Are there any?
>>
>> XML has become something of a Procrustean bed, and many
>> applications have been forced to fit into it, when it was not
>> designed to fit them.
>
> Further to this, I have been searching for an article which I remember
> reading about XML some time ago. Here it is:
> http://www.oceaninformatics.biz/publications/e2.pdf
I do not find the criticism of XML in the above paper convincing, at
least based on my own experience with the XML schema of Trolltech's Qt
software development system. (The article uses a red herring argument,
where it criticizes XML for not having a capability for which it was
never designed.) XML trades off efficiency for flexibility. BB's .odc
encoding is not human readable, and although its encoding scheme is
printable it is not human-decipherable. Qt can encode the graphical
user interface for a cross-platform (Windows/Linux/Unix/Mac OS X)
application in an XML file that can be modified, if necessary, with a
simple text editor and a rudimentary understanding of the tagging
syntax. You can design a web page with a graphical web design tool and
never know HTML, but if you know HTML you can inspect and modify the
HTML object code generated by the "compiler". In the same way, you can
design a platform-independent GUI for a Qt application and never know
its XML schema, but if you need to, you can inspect and modify the XML
object code generated by the GUI "compiler".
On May 21, 2006, at 2:05 PM, Rene Krywult wrote:
> If you say that we need a converter from .odc to XML and vice versa, I
> think this is a good idea. If you suggest to switch from .odc to XML
> permanently, I strongly disagree.
I would agree with Rene.
In debating how to spread BB/CP now that it is open, we need to realize
that our individual requirements for a development system are not
necessarily the same as the requirements for many other developers. As
stated in some earlier posts, I think re-implementing platform
independence, to Linux and Mac OS X (even if limited to the new
Mac/Intel machines), would be the most important thing to concentrate
on in the beginning.
But the incorporation of open standards should be a goal as well, and
XML is a growing standard. Another standard to consider would be for
graphics, two possibilities being Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG, which
is an XML schema mostly applicable for Web pages) and/or OpenGL.
Another would be PostScript based printing. Another would be some audio
capability, but I am not so familiar with open audio standards. Now
that BB is open source, it needs to evolve to incorporate other open
source standards. The incorporation of open standards will lower the
"opportunity costs" for potential BB developers.
Stan
J. Stanley Warford
Professor of Computer Science
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA 90263
310-506-4332
Stan.Warford{([at]})nowhere.xy
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Received on Mon May 22 2006 - 08:04:38 UTC