Re:XML for databases: a dead idea
by metajack on Tuesday January 15, 2013 @12:23PM
(#5061393)
As someone who wrote an XML config file for a project way back when, I can provide a few answers.
For me, it was either use an off the shelf parser or write my own. The config files at the time were all like apache's config - various combinations of weird syntax.
XML came with parsers off the shelf and gave you some validation up front. If there were other tools at the time available, I probably hadn't found them, and XML had a lot of buzz so it was easy to find.
These days all the libraries have parsers for a variety of easy to use data formats, from JSON and YAML to Protobufs and ini files.
For me, it was either use an off the shelf parser or write my own. The config files at the time were all like apache's config - various combinations of weird syntax.
XML came with parsers off the shelf and gave you some validation up front. If there were other tools at the time available, I probably hadn't found them, and XML had a lot of buzz so it was easy to find.
These days all the libraries have parsers for a variety of easy to use data formats, from JSON and YAML to Protobufs and ini files.