There's a cool post about how XML is broken (or at least generally unfriendly) and how a subset of XML may make things easier over at bitworking.org: Regex-able Xml (eew, gross, he uses ISO 8601 dates for his permalinks).
I didn't always believe that XML sucks. I don't even really think it sucks today, I am just frustrated at the current crop of tools for manipulating XML. I have mentioned this before when talking about the DOM. The replies I got from that post we're helpful but didn't get to the root of the problem. All the APIs I have looked at, SAX, DOM, pull, etc, all have problems. It was only recently that I came to realize that the problems in the APIs are just manifestations of fundamental problems with XML itself.
Time passes... More XML experience is gained by yours truly and on many occasions I have found myself pining for the ability to do regular expression processing of XML. ... Each time I had a craving for regex's I would suppress the urge, tell myself that it was the wrong thing to do. XML and regexs just don't mix.
Today I reached the breaking point. The problem isn't with regular expressions, the problem is with XML. The pathologies in XML that preclude the use of regular expressions are just that, pathologies, and ones that need to be excised.
This is why when I can, I use another (much simpler) private format that we've defined, which will someday be unleashed upon the world... mwa ha ha ha.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
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