On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 19:09:32 -0800, Bruce <dke### [at] sksympaticoca> wrote:
>To Quote from the same pararaph's:
>"XML is designed to be human legible, and thus mainly text based."
> 
>...and to quote from the example a couple pararaph's later:
>  <stock_quote>
>    <symbol>IBM</symbol>
>    <when>
>      <date>12/16/1999</date>
>      <time>4:40PM</time>
>    </when>
>    <price type="ask"     value="109.1875"/>
>    <price type="open"    value="108"/>
>    <price type="dayhigh" value="109.6875"/>
>    <price type="daylow"  value="105.75"/>
>    <change>+2.1875</change>
>    <volume>7050200</volume>
>   </stock_quote>
>
>
>My only comment is "just because it uses the modernized Greek alphabet,
>doesn't make it 'human legible'! Although I've been a programmer for a
>...few... years, and I can actually understand it, the term 'barely'
>comes to mind. Ask yourself when the last time was that while reading a
>book you ran across the <aTag> ... </aTag> construct? 

I've said this a few times already, but I'll say it again. I'm not
really a programmer. I have written simple BASIC programs in the past.
I've dabbled with machine/assembly language on 6800, 6502, and 8086
compatible microprocessors. More recently, I have written a couple
very simple C language programs. When I look at typical source code
written in C/C++, Perl, or Java, I usually don't a clue what is going
on. These syntax systems seem very alien to me, and nearly
indecipherable. The examples of XML I have seen, are very readable by
comparison.

I think this says a lot. If a non-programmer like me can more easily
interpret XML than the common computer languages in use, it *has* to
be considered human-readable. You claim the word "barely" comes to
mind, but perhaps this is because you have grown so accustomed to
reading another existing computer language. XML *does* look different
than C/C++, Java, etc. You simply have to forget all your
preconceptions of what a language "should look like" to be able to
judge it properly.

>So. To convert the POV language to make it easier to use for people who
>want to make POV tools, seems like a bit of wasted effort, since the
>language parser is already available in source code.

Perhaps you are forgetting that several people have wanted to write a
robust parser for POV in the past, and to my knowledge, no one has.
Apparently, having the POV parser source code available isn't enough
help.

>XML may actually provide useful, but it ain't pretty! And it's a long
>way away from human legible. 

I guess it must depend on the human in question.    :)

>So tell me, what benefit would this actually provide?

Nigel has already given you a list of advantages. They seemed like
perfectly reasonable and understandable concepts to me. I had also
given some potential advantages myself (Keep in mind, my vision of an
XML implementation was different than Nigel's. I must admit that his
vision of an XML implementation is more interesting.)

Later,
Glen Berry

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