From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-10-28T16:39:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby.bah! (was Re: XMLParser, NQXML... and also RAA.succ)

From: "why the lucky stiff" <ruby-talk@whytheluckystiff.net>


> > There is no perfect format, IMHO.  XML's good for machines and for
> > transferring between automated processes.  Yaml's good if you need to
> > have a human touch down and edit the file and don't want to barrage
> > him with a zillion characters that the eye has to parse through.
>
> I'm trying to understand why XML is good for machines.  XML parsers
> will likely always be more sizeable and unwieldy to a machine than a
> YAML parser.  It seems that XML is good for machines in the same
> way that hefting large bales of hay is good for people.  I dunno.
>
> [...]
>
> _why

It's a trade-off: easy enough for man *and* machine to process.  The balance
could be struck in a different way, sure, but someone has drawn a line in the
sand and produced a document representation format that lots of people can use
and benefit from.  It's popular.  And it's buzzword-compliant (which seems to
be one reason why a minority dislike it - not accusing anyone here).  And it's
a bitch to edit manually.

As for being processor intensive, who cares?  That what processors are for :P

Oh, and what's your favourite validating parser for YAML?

Gavin