From: John Carter <john.carter@...>
Date: 2001-11-15T09:30:19+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:25230] Re: XML support in the standard lib;whatexactly?

On Thu, 15 Nov 2001, Alan Chen wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 05:24:35AM +0900, John Carter wrote:
> > Am I wrong? Can anyone think of any counter examples?
>
> How about porting of libraries and components expecting to access XML
> via DOM? Right now I'm considering porting XMLtoDBMS - a perl library
> that uses XML to ease DBMS access. If there were a DOM interface to
> ruby's XML layer, I'm thinking that it would be possible to write a
> tool to convert the perl to ruby as a first pass porting
> effort. Without, a DOM interface, I need to port all the XML accesses
> by hand.

I can't say I'm grabbed by this as a counter example.

> > Otherwise lets have no more of this "Ruby standard XML library needs to
> > have the standard DOM API" talk.
> >
> > The DOM API is broken by design, built to the lowest common denominator.
> > Its a pain and a suffering.
>
> I'm not saying that ruby needs to only provide access to its XML via
> DOM.  I don't even think having DOM should be a central priority for
> XML parsing in Ruby.  But many xml components and libraries which
> might be ported to Ruby will be ported more directly if a DOM api
> exists in ruby. Because DOM is already familiar to many programmers
> outside of Ruby, this also might be a way to attract XML programmers.

Ah. Yes. I was familiar with DOM before I came upon Ruby.

I've hated DOM from the first time I saw it. (Loved Ruby at first sight
though...)

I suspect most people who are familiar with DOM and a good OOPS language
will look immediately for a better native binding. DOM was self conciously
a lowest common denominator requiring little or no language support.

> I think theres plenty of room for Ruby to have a ruby-way API as well
> as industry standard XML API's.  Open source is all about letting
> people work in thier area of need/interest and collaborating in a
> coordinated fashion.

I agree with that wholeheartedly.

I just wished to persuade people that DOM is not the way to go. If they go
that way, well, sigh!, we'll miss them!



John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
New Zealand

Indeed, the first noble truth of Buddhism, usually translated as
`all life is suffering,' is more accurately rendered `life is filled
with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness.'
		-- M.D. Epstein