A Brief Defense of XML

Re:A Brief Defense of XML by chrismorgan on Friday January 06, 2023 @09:38PM (#34284521)

If going in this direction, I’d want justification for position and age still being separate elements. Elements are clearly suitable or necessary when you want multiple values, order-sensitivity, or to contain something other than a single text value. But that’s not the case here, and I find “hierarchical structure” or “property grouping” to be weak justification.

So then:

  <star
    bayerName="Beta Pictoris"
    spectralType="A6V"
    mass="1.75"
    luminosity="8.7"
    rightAscension="05h 47m 17.1s"
    declination="−51°03′59″"
    distance="63.4ly"
    minAge="20My"
    maxAge="24My"/>

We are, of course, playing into the article’s second footnote here.

(Also: I’m curious why you turned the original document’s ″ (U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME) into " (", U+0022 QUOTATION MARK).)

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Re:A Brief Defense of XML by sixbrx on Saturday January 07, 2023 @09:36AM (#34288303)

Position really needs an "epoch" metadata attribute (coords are relative to the equinox which moves over the years) so the coords need the "epoch" to be specified (e.g. "2000" or "2050"). That this kind of thing can rear its head unexpectedly might be an argument for favoring separate elements to group fields? If it were thrown in with the other attributes of "star" it looks like it qualifies the star, but it only really qualifies the coordinates.

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Re:A Brief Defense of XML by Devasta on Saturday January 07, 2023 @01:26PM (#34290957)

I changed the character because I'm a dumbass who thought I was looking at a quotation mark.

I don't ever see double prime at my job, so it was probably muscle memory.

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