The subject line has been precisely my advice for at least the last five years, at least to people who aren't especially interested in markup for the sake of markup.
Thanks,
Simon--
On 3/23/13 11:04 AM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
Hi Folks,
First a few definitions:
----------------
Sweet spot
----------------
A place where there a maximum response for
a given amount of effort.
--------------------
Mixed content
--------------------
An element has mixed content if its content is a
mix of data and elements. Here is an example of
mixed content:
<condition>The patient exhibited <emp>extreme</emp>
arrhythmia</condition>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Data-centric versus Document-centric content
--------------------------------------------------------------
Data-centric content is where there is no mixed content,
document-centric content is where there is mixed content.
-----------------------------
Semi-structured data
-----------------------------
A synonym for mixed content.
Okay, now for the issue at hand:
Should you use XML?
Sean McGrath says [1]:
XML's sweet spot is mixed content.
If you are not using mixed content, then there
are a trillion and one ways of representing data-centric
content, most programming languages do it out-of-the-box.
If you absolutely, totally, never, ever will need mixed
content then there are sane alternatives to XML.
There always has been alternatives, from humble CSV up to
fancier JSON/Python/Ruby direct data expression languages.
A huge chunk of the world doesn't need mixed content or
even know what it is.
It has always been a source of worry that folks with perfectly
good relational data sets have felt compelled by buzz-pressure
to put their content into XML - very little gain in the general case.
Professor Daniel Lemire says [2]:
XML is great for dealing with semi-structured data.
Alas, we ended up torturing XML by applying it to ill-suited
purposes.
We must learn how to select the best format. Does your data
look like a table? Can a flat file do the job? Do you need a
key-value format like JSON? Or maybe a simple text file?
Take a good look at your data before picking a format for it.
Conclusion:
If your problem doesn't need mixed content, then don't use XML.
Comments?
/Roger
[1] http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com/2007/01/mixed-content-trying-to-understand-json.html
[2] http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2010/11/17/you-probably-misunderstand-xml/
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Simon St.Laurent
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