>Ed Leafe wrote: ><snipped> > > Dabo uses XML for its class, menu and report form files. VFP uses a > > binary format. > > > > I can open up Dabo files in any text editor. They will be nicely > > formatted and color-coded. I can edit them, again with any editor I > > like, and they still work. I can create and parse them using built-in,
Actually, opening the file in Notepad (for example) will not give you color coding. And in terms of editing a complex class library in a simple text editor, I can see where things could easily get messed up pretty bad. Aka, indentations getting confused (between XML "nesting" vs actual text). And then trying to find out where you are in the "Object Hierarchy" could be quite a challenge. XML does follow the hierarchical data model so it translates pretty for OO languages. However, from what I've seen, you need true XML parsing tools and a constructed UI design to have a viable development environment. Perhaps the absolute most simplistic classes (no subs, few or no properties, etc) could be edited with any text editor, but not in a general sense. > > to me, without worrying about corruption issues. Version control You can have corruptions in a text file just like in a "binary" file. But they generally won't cause as severe results (e.g. code loss would probably be less in a simple text file). > > systems have no problem working with these files, and can easily > > produce diffs between different versions. > > That is a true statement for text-based diff routines. And at least for now, that is the primary implementation around. There are tools to take VCX code and create a text-based PRG class out of it. It is an additional step of course, so that is a slight disadvantage. I think the Fox folks used dbf formats for vcx/vct to give developers easy/quick hooks into the class structure. You could perhaps do something similar for text-only files - with a lot more code to parse things and find out beginnings and ends of the code. But with the dbf approach, it's easier. Overall, I do think that source code is actually one area where XML can do a good job. Performance is not an issue, and size is not an issue (since compilation removes the waste, etc). But you would still need to have some kind of UI built on top of it to make it useful and less likely to get messed up. -Charlie _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
