Re: Scripting in Gnome

[jamie <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Tue, 2004-02-03 at 18:52, Jody Goldberg wrote:

> > XML is designed to be human readable and so it should in theory be
> > easier for someone to alter or create the xml files than it would a
> > propriety format. 
> 
> That is a rather questionable assertion.  XML is designed to be
> human readable, but it definitely not easier to read that formats
> more closely aligned to the task.

Hence my comment *in theory* above

> 
> Here's a sample of a gnumeric expression stored in xml
>     <gmr:Cell Col="6" Row="7" ExprID="2">=if(and(not(C8),F8&lt;&gt;&quot;-&quot;,F8&lt;&gt;&quot;&quot;),&quot;Yes&quot;,&quot;&quot;)</gmr:Cell>
> 

A decent XML editor should hide away the escape sequences and thus make
it more readable.

> Note
>     - the Col/Row values are stored as strings and require the
>       application to know how to convert them
>     - &lt;&gt; is a heck of alot harder to read than '<>'
>     - The quotes are very distracting.
> 
> Let me guess your next suggestion.  We should jsut store the
> preparsed expression as an xml tree.  It doesn't solve any of the
> points above and is even harder to read.
> 
> xml works nicely for data.  It is not a silver bullet.  IMHO it does
> not map well to storing code.

I agree but then my xml file would be a mixture of data and code. I dont
see there being a perfect file format for what I want - its just that
XML is the only thing close to a standard around and is preferable to a
more propriety format. I am thinking of using include files for chunks
of plain code though... 

jamie.