[Ohrrpgce] SVN: pkmnfrk/2428 Breaking the ground on my XML idea. for the time being, I'm not hacking

[Ralph Versteegen]

2008/11/6 James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>:
> I probably won't be able to make it to IRC, but save a log for me please
> (or post it on the list if nobody else shows up)
>
> ---
> James

The conduits of discussion are logged by the friendly CP surveillance
bot: http://www.castleparadox.com/logs/ohrdev/
For some reason the #hamsterspeak logs aren't available. I suppose
secrets will remain secret for now

I'm in IRC generally always, though I should (and will) be studying
for a big scary exam tomorrow breathing down my neck.

>
> On Thu, Nov 06, 2008 at 01:09:21AM +0000, Mike Caron wrote:
>> Well, i'm going to be home about 11:30 EST. Want to meet on IRC to
>> discuss it? I have an idea which should satisfy everyone, and is too
>> long to type on a cell phone :)
>>
>> On 11/5/08, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:
>> > On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 01:41:23PM -0500, Mike Caron wrote:
>> >> James Paige wrote:
>> >> >On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 12:03:28AM -0800, subversion at HamsterRepublic.com
>> >> >wrote:
>> >> >>pkmnfrk
>> >> >>2008-11-05 00:03:27 -0800 (Wed, 05 Nov 2008)
>> >> >>467
>> >> >>Breaking the ground on my XML idea. for the time being, I'm not hacking
>> >> >>the OHR directly. Instead, I'm going to work on a separate "test"
>> >> >> program.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>The main reason is because using libxml adds three DLLs as dependencies,
>> >> >>
>> >> >>and I'm going to try and make them all static libraries, or at least
>> >> >> roll
>> >> >>them into one DLL.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>I assume this is not such a big deal on Linux, since Linux users are
>> >> >> used
>> >> >>to having to apt-get a bunch of stuff before trying new things out,
>> >> >>right? :P
>> >> >
>> >> >I was reading up on the differences between XML, YAML and JSON. I really
>> >> >liked the minimalism of those other formats. XML really is astonishingly
>> >> >bulky.
>> >>
>> >> Truthfully, I'd never heard of YAML until this very moment. However, I
>> >> glossed over the spec to get an idea of it, and here are my thoughts,
>> >> and why I like XML.
>> >>
>> >> YAML: It uses indentation for block levels. As I'm sure I've expressed
>> >> before, I dislike this, due to the possibility of screwing it up by
>> >> having the wrong tab settings as the last guy. Indentation is good,
>> >> delineation by indentation is bad, IMO. It also prevents me from copying
>> >> one block from any random place and popping it in wherever I want
>> >> without fixing the indentation. (altogether, this is also why I
>> >> personally can't stand python)
>> >
>> > Interesting. That never bothered me about python, because I was already
>> > used to re-indenting when copying-and-pasting in every other language I
>> > have worked in. (just because python is the only language that enforces
>> > indentation, doesn't mean I don't religiously indent in every other
>> > language)
>> >
>> >> JSON: If you look at the example page
>> >> (http://www.json.org/example.html), then you'll notice something
>> >> disconcerting. Barring the last example (a servlet definition), the XML
>> >> versions of all those examples are more readable. It may not be as
>> >> concise, but it... I dunno, it looks better to me. Also, the fact that I
>> >> can't see at a glance which brace matches which block bugs me, slightly.
>> >
>> > Ah, I think I spot a big reason why we disagree about this. For you, an
>> > important goal of using XML is the human-readability, right?
>> >
>> > For me, human readability iss nice-to-have, but it isn't a big deal. I
>> > can see myself looking at the text of a data file to verify that it
>> > serialized correctly, but I wouldn't dream of hand editing or
>> > copying-and-pasting unless I had no other choice.
>> >
>> > What is cool about XML to me is the fact that it can store hierarchical
>> > tree-like data, the fact that it can store variable length lists of
>> > arbitrary objects, and the fact that new data members can be easily
>> > inserted and old data will just get the defaults.
>> >
>> > ...Byt other formats fith the above description just fine. I could even
>> > make a binary format that had all those features.
>> >
>> >> XML: Yes, XML is the bulkiest of the lot. But, it's the most mature
>> >> format as well. And, lots of tool support is available. But, the thing
>> >> that really sells me on XML is that I could, in theory, write an XSLT
>> >> stylesheet, attach it to my textbox document, and get a preview of every
>> >> textbox in my game, for example. Or, also in theory, I could embed every
>> >> data lump in one document (if I ever decided that was necessary or a
>> >> good idea).
>> >
>> > If we are talking XML as an import/export format, I can't find any
>> > argument against it, but as an internal format, I don't care for it.
>> >
>> >> Lastly, for the purposes of OHR development, XML is the only format in
>> >> the bunch that has a library included with the compiler. For the other
>> >> formats, I'd have to translate their headers into FB, which may or may
>> >> not be impossible (it likely is possible, but it's still a lot of work).
>> >
>> > Yeah, I do see that XML headers come with FreeBasic.

There's a tool for translating C headers to FB. You didn't think that
they were done by hand, did you? Actually, doing it by hand isn't too
hard either.

>> >
>> > The inclusion of another dll dependency isn't a dealbreaker, but I am
>> > not excited about it. I do notice that libxml2.dll + iconv.dll >
>> > (SLD.dll + SDl_mixer.dll) * 2
>> >
>> > ---
>> > James Paige
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Ohrrpgce mailing list
>> > ohrrpgce at lists.motherhamster.org
>> > http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Mike Caron
>> Tale of the Cave
>> http://taleotc.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ohrrpgce mailing list
>> ohrrpgce at lists.motherhamster.org
>> http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org
>>
>>
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