"Costello, Roger L." <> writes:
> Arjun Ray wrote [2]:
>
> the authors [of a paper criticizing XML] do go wrong in
> characterizing XML as a "mechanism for serializing structured
> data", which is precisely where all the bad karma originates.
>
> if the question is "a flexible, efficient, automated mechanism for
> serializing structured data", then just about all of the time XML is
> _not_ the answer.
I strongly disagree. First, distinguish between human-authored
vs. automatically generated. Then, distinguish between human-targeted
vs. automatically consumed. Finally, consider whether
trust boundaries and/or mission-critical integrity constraints are
involved, i.e. whether validation is needed.
For the _very_ large space of automatically-generated and -consumed
information, where validation is required, XML remains the sweet-spot
for semi-structured data, in my opinion. And there are lots and lots
of systems that do this.
ht
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