Re: Second "RFC" on pkg-data idea for ports

On Wed, 2004-04-14 at 07:05, Andrew Milton wrote:

> The problem then isn't that it's not XML, it's having something well 
> defined. Making it bad XML won't make it any better.
> 
> XML is not great as a registry/database format. It turns out to be ugly to
> parse with code and ugly to edit by humans, and then humans try to to make it
> into something else that it isn't. Plus it's so easy to do a bad job in XML.

That's true. We should not argue about basic matters.

I'm hoping that if XML is used, it's used correctly. Call me
optimistic.

> Well this doesn't make sense. If you're using XML is SHOULD be validated when
> it's written, because it's probably going to need to conform to a DTD or an
> XML-schema. This shouldn't only be detected on read.

If you are simply using "fprintf"s to output the XML text and not too
many "if"s, you can simply validate one single created instance. Of
course the content should be in valid encoding, too.

> Simple is always better. You can build a lot of things with simple building
> blocks.

Small comment about "simple":
I like simple, too. But I would like to warn everyone: if you make
things too simple you will (as usually) end up in using US-ASCII
files (property->value) and kick out all people from other nations.
If you really are serious about doing work for broad masses
(I would really like to see "FreeBSD for everyone") then you
have to do it right. I can tell you for sure that I know many
people who will not touch a system which is not in their native
language. This is usually underestimated.

So, make it simple, but think about consequences!

Martin