Dave Cragg wrote:
>
> At 9:00 pm -0400 17/4/01, andu wrote:
> >I looked at info on different messaging software the other day and came
> >across "Jobber" which is "open source".
> >What distinguishes it doesn't seem to be a new technology or philosophy
> >but the fact that it's all XML: header information, the message itself
> >and client-server control data.
> >XML has great advantages at operating with data which is displayed but I
> >never understood the usefulness of it when it comes to managing data
> >"behind the scene".
> >Why would one use "<username>andu</username>" instead of "username:
> >andu" and stuff like that in a header? Same goes for webDav. The
> >overhead of parsing and transmitting at least twice the length of data
> >seems unacceptable to me.
> >I'd like to hear what other people think on this subject.
> >
>
> I guess the appeal of XML is its generality. You can use it to
> describe anything from publishable documents to conventional
> database-like data.
>
> But I think you're right about the overheads. If your data is
> limited to unique fields (user name, id, etc.), and you know when and
> how it is going to be used, then why bother with XML. On the other
> hand, if you're not sure when you start out how the data might
> eventually be used, it might be safer to follow the crowd.
>
> I'm facing this problem right now. Here's a description. (Excuse the ramble.)
>
> I've been revising a language teaching program which consists of a
> large number of lessons, each one a Metacard stack. The plan is to
> convert the "content" of the lessons into XML. This makes sense, as
> the lessons can be easily repurposed. From the same XML source, the
> lessons can be played interactively in Metacard, published in hard
> copy, and even played interactively with other tools (e.g. Flash).
> But none of the "final formats" uses XML directly. In the Metacard
> lessons, the XML is parsed when the lesson opens and is put into
> Metacard properties, variables, etc. From that point, the xml is
> never referenced again. For the printed copy, the XML tags are
> replaced with rtf formatting code (using Metacard of course) and
> output as a formatted Word document that is then printed to PDF.
>
> Using XML for the lesson content probably makes good sense. But the
> program also has to output various student data such as test results,
> lesson progress, etc. Currently, this is done in typical key/value
> style. E.g.:
> [GENERAL]
> userid=xxxx123
> lastname=Cragg
> firstname=Dave
> [TEST_RESULTS]
> recenttestdate=2001,4,1
> recenttestscore=0
> etc.
>
> Should I change this to use XML? Right now, I can't see any good
> reason to, so I probably won't. But I think I'm likely to face the
> question, "Why aren't you using XML for this?" My answer right now
> is a shrug of the shoulders. So what do you think? Should I change it
> to XML or not?
If a shrug of shoulders would do, then don't, otherwise you must come up
with something;-).
I'd say, if someone wants to interact with the database of students
performance she/he can convert the plain text data to whatever format
they wish specially if it is in a non MC-specific form, which in your
example is not.
>
> Cheers
> Dave Cragg
Andu
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