Re:XML Sucks
by nailer on Friday January 01, 2010 @02:05AM
(#1025536)
> Very bad at handling binary data
Agreed. This is common to most text formats though. It This is why most XML apps use URL relationships to refer to binaries.
> Incredibly verbose
There's a great deal on confusion between XML the data structure and XML the common method of serializing that data structure. Probably because they have the same name.
Primarily, we deal with XML the data structure. If we create something from scratch, or once we de-serialize what was sent to us, we're appending, inserting, iterating, etc. over element trees. The data structure is very simple, how it looks when you serialize it is up to you - like the article, I also think tag soup looks horrible, so I serialize into a Python-style indented-block format when printing. I might get round to doing an input format as well.
Of course, it would be nice if the default serialization format sucked less.
Extending your point about tools, most people don't really have good XML editors. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to fire up 'vix' and delete, insert, etc. elements and attributes. In the Unix world in particular the tools are still based around presentation rather than structure.
Agreed. This is common to most text formats though. It This is why most XML apps use URL relationships to refer to binaries.
> Incredibly verbose
There's a great deal on confusion between XML the data structure and XML the common method of serializing that data structure. Probably because they have the same name.
Primarily, we deal with XML the data structure. If we create something from scratch, or once we de-serialize what was sent to us, we're appending, inserting, iterating, etc. over element trees. The data structure is very simple, how it looks when you serialize it is up to you - like the article, I also think tag soup looks horrible, so I serialize into a Python-style indented-block format when printing. I might get round to doing an input format as well.
Of course, it would be nice if the default serialization format sucked less.
Extending your point about tools, most people don't really have good XML editors. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to fire up 'vix' and delete, insert, etc. elements and attributes. In the Unix world in particular the tools are still based around presentation rather than structure.