On Mon, 30 Sep 2002, Michael Michael wrote: > after 1990... Note these arguments are the standard > anti-xml arguments given by most idots..
Okay, I will assume that you are not a troll just so I can put forth some of the non-standard arguments: 1) Versioning XML *still* doesn't have any good mechanisms for dealing with forward-compatibility and backward-compatibility. ie. reading a config file for version 10.4 on version 10.1. The closest you get is to use DOM to suck the whole tree in and then query the existing elements tree only when you need something. However, this doesn't address approximations to elements, obsoleted elements, etc. If you have a solution, I'm all ears and you have a reasonably compelling argument for adopting XML. And not just for XFree86. I use XML for data interchange in engineering and would *love* to hear a solution to this. 2) Proliferation of config files We already have two incompatible config file types. One for XFree86 v.3 and one for XFree86 v.4. This introduces a third type and doesn't really obsolete the v.4 config file. So which one gets priority? This can be handled by fiat, but there will be lots of confusion in users. 3) Schema, DTD, or raw XML? And which of these choices should be used for the config file? DTD's are supposedly supplanted by schemas, but schema knowledge and handling hasn't proliferated very well yet and even DTD handling is sketchy (most parsers are non-validating). So, you probably wind up with dumb raw XML since it's the lowest common denominator. Raw XML has very little advantage over the config file as it stands, and it has a big disadvantage in that all the tools written to deal with the current config format have to be rewritten. 4) External dependency Do you want the possibility of killing your X server when you upgrade your libXML? That's what this kind of linkage implies. X is a pretty primitive/low-level/primary part of most OS's. xml is fairly high-level and normally optional. Creating that kind of dependency is not a great idea. The main issue here is that the XFree86 config has simple syntax. The most complicated bits are not the syntax, but creating the content. Creating a modeline, setting up multiple displays, activating DRI, etc. are going to be the same level of pain whether the config file stays as it is or whether it moves to XML. And, as a side note, calling people idiots (misspelled even) rarely helps one's case. -a _______________________________________________ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
