Re: "Binary XML" proposals

[Rick Jelliffe <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: Al Snell <alaric@alaric-snell.com>

>Given that there are freely and widely available tools to do the
>conversions in both ways, a compiled machine code file (for your
>architecture, so you'll have the *right* tools installed anyway as a
>developer) is only harder to work with than a text file because you have
>to disassemble it first (unless you have a debugger handy, in which case
>the debugger will usually let you explore the binary file and handle cross
>referencing for you, which a text viewer WON'T do!)

You are saying that a binary format is better than a text format because it
can be converted to a text format?

(My first job was to rewrite a real-time assembler program written without
comments, so it somewhat staggers me that anyone could even think of saying
seriously that comments were somehow strippable without degrading the
readability of the document.)

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe