[ 24 Dec 02 18:45, Jan Vermeulen wrote to Scott Little ]

 sl>> If you're thinking that we should use [E]SLF -> XML until
 sl>> everyone can use XML, forget it.  It won't work.  There's little
 sl>> incentive to use XML at all in that scenario.
 JV>     XML is good for local, not for global wide use.

What?  Why?

 JV>>> If the developers will get serious and give priority to serving
 JV>>> the net.
 sl>> Huh?
 JV>     Don't you see what a "they must adopt" attitude really means?

Who said anyone must do anything?

 JV>>>     The problem seems to be that the XML developers do not see
 JV>>> how they could extract that data. As if string parsing would be
 JV>>> a PITA (even BASIC could do that in the early eighties...).
 sl>> Huh?
 JV>     It was said it wuld be a PITA to extract data from (E)SLF for
 JV> building an XML base.

That is because SLF is vague, with many conflicting 'standards' and broken
implementations.  Fixing them is obviously a good idea, but David Drummond,
etc. have been harping on about broken entries for months and nothing
significant has happened.  And then there are issues that cannot be fixed
without breaking software.

It's far easier to start with a clean format, and convert the data to the
broken format, than start with a broken format and try clean it up
automagically.

 JV>     There is a small but very significant difference between "look
 JV> we've got some nice new software for you" and "you do no need to
 JV> upgrade at all".
 JV>     A difference of 100 nodes, perhaps?

Huh?


-- Scott Little  [fidonet#3:712/848 / sysgod{at}sysgod.org]

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