Quoting Jesper Sörensen on Sat 4 Jan 2003 23:55 to Jan Vermeulen:

 js> If I've understood the proposals correctly the ESLF will add some
 js> keyword/value lines before or after each nodelist line. That means
 js> we'll be doing both line-based CSV parsing and keyword/value
 js> parsing. (Hooray! ;-) A pure keyword/value format would be cleaner
 js> and simpler.

    Agreed but it will break downwards compatibility.

 js> The SLF/ESLF format is difficult to use in other forms than the
 js> traditional text file.

    That is its advantage ;-)

 js> With some work, the nodelist can be imported into e.g. a database table,
 js> but handling the diffs is very difficult.

    Deleting and adding records was already possible with DBASE1 at the Jet
Propulsion Laberatory, so I do not see what would be the problem, unless
you spread your fields all over the place.

 js> The fact that you don't need such things right now
 js> doesn't mean that noone else need it either.

    Until now I have not got the problem list I have asked for (not you).

 JV>>     ESLF will contain all data one ever would need; XML may extract
 JV>> whatever it needs.

 js> Yes, it's certainly possible to include much more data in the
 js> nodelist using different tweaks, but it will not be as pure and
 js> simple as a real keyword/value format. Since every piece of
 js> software that wants to use the new data needs to be rewritten we
 js> could as well take a bigger step and fix other issues as well.

    In time we should, but let's break one glass a time. Repair is easier
that way and we might avoid the slogan that says "All known bugs have
been replaced by entirely new ones."

 js> BTW, I hope ESLF will use UTF-8 or something similar...?

    Sure. Bytes 0x20 thru 0x7F plus EOF. We'll tackle your name later ;-)

 JV>>     The problem seems to be that the XML developers do not see how
 JV>> they could extract that data. As if string parsing would be a PITA
 JV>> (even BASIC could do that in the early eighties...).

 js> I've written lots of text parsers in many different languages but
 js> that doesn't mean that I always enjoyed it.

    If you want to write code for the net, you first should look at what
the net needs and will able to use; your joy should come from a job well
done, not of the coding itself. That is very much secondary.

 js> In some languages text parsing is a lot easier than in others...

    Don't tell me...

    -==-