David Guest wrote: > I agree json looks much neater. Readability is important which is one > reason why python is better than C (and why rails is better than > python??. :-)
I know David is angling for a bite here, but I'll oblige. Firstly, "Rails" is a Web application development framework written in and for the Ruby programming language. Thus it is incommensurate with Python - the correct comparison is with Web frameworks written in and for the Python programming language, of which the two most popular and advanced are TurboGears and Django. Comparison of the underlying programming languages, Ruby versus Python, is also important. I have already ventured my opinion on which Web framework/programming language combinations of these choices are better. Regarding Ruby-on-Rails, is the Horst Rails Express running a bit late, or is the Stationmaster's clock just fast? Or is the problem, as British Rail were wont to explain when faced with a late-running train when I lived (briefly, mercifully) in Britain: "Wrong sort of snow on tracks." > If XML is too wordy, HL7 is surely not wordy enough. I'd trade white > space for hieroglyphics any day. XML has provisions for embedding at least some, and possibly a lot of metadata in the actual data (eg field names are given, and XML document headers can point to or even include data definition documents and so on), whereas for HL7 v2.x, the metadata which allows you to make sense of the hieroglyphics is contained in various PDF or paper documents, hundreds of pages thick, which only the really dedicated actually adhere to. Aso, there is XML and there is XML. 'XML" ranges from data files tagged in an ad hoc manner with angle brackets, but not formally adhering to any specifications (which can be a useful and valid approach, but perhaps better done with YAML or JSON as Horst points out), through things like the RELAX NG style of XML data schema definition, which provides sufficient formalism to make XML data easily computable, through to the full-blown, heavy-weight XML schema catastrophes which are designed to keep highly-paid XML experts in nice suits. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
