Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: hyperdoc

[root]

Bob,

re: openmath... the zips directory contains the OMC tar file.
it has yet to be re-integrated.

XML... ummm... well...

I worked for Worldcom, monitoring their data centers and backbone.
Worldcom owns about 75% of the actual hardware that makes up the internet.
We had a monitoring application that had a few pieces of data about each
device on the net like IP address, MAC address, SNMP passwords, etc.

I spent a year converting a flat text file used as the basis for this
worldwide monitoring to XML and working with the tools parse it. I
worked with the JDOM (Java DOM parser) people and we had XML "experts"
from the standards committee come preach at us.

XML is a horror show in practice. XML is standard, of course, and the
standards are on the web so you can just point at them. Assuming, of
course, that web pages stay around. And the parsers are large, slow,
and full of buggy corner cases. XML added a factor of 5 to the file
size and a factor of 10 to the processing time.

XML added nothing of value. Other tools and formats do it better,
easier, and faster, and even more portably. 

I'm sure the issue can be debated and I was once a major XML advocate
so I'm very familiar with the supposed "pros". No longer. 

In short, XML is gonna be a hard sell.

a recovering XML-aholic,
Tim