[AccessD] XML (was: PDF vs Access)

Stuart,

<<Sheesh - talk about "to a man with a hammer"....>>

  Could not agree more...so far, every time I've had to use it its just
created more work.  And it *really* gets messy if the data your working with
is unstructured.  However every time it comes up in discussion, someone
posts a snazzy one or two line piece of code to dump structured data, but
they never talk about the dark side<g>. 

  The Office Ribbon is a good example; look at the XML you need to use to
modify it rather then using a object model.  As a result, it got very
complex to manage and work with (which now even Microsoft admits).  It took
something that was simple and straight forward to work with and changed it
into something overly complex.

  And of course there is all the overhead associated with it; storing,
transmitting, parsing, etc. 

  I still have not found a clear benefit to using it and avoid it whenever I
can.

  Thanks but no thanks.

Jim.

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Stuart McLachlan
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 6:51 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] XML (was: PDF vs Access)

If I want a data store, I'll use a data store - not an eXtended Markup
Language text file.

If I want a lightweight database, I can use  Access Jet,  SQL Server CE,
SQLite or any one 
of a number of other even lighter solutions .  

If they are overkill, I can roll my own delimited or random access file in a
few minutes, or 
just read write an array in  memory to/from disk (just a couple of lines of
code) - all of these 
approaches are  actually designed to *be* data stores.  

The definitive explanation of what XML is comes from
http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/
<quote>
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is completely
described 
in this document. Its goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received,
and processed 
on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed
for ease of 
implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML.
</quote>


Sheesh - talk about "to a man with a hammer"....

-- 
Stuart

On 2 Sep 2009 at 7:45, Charlotte Foust wrote:

> You don't, Stuart.  You use xml as a structured data store. 
> 
> Charlotte Foust
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Stuart
> McLachlan
> Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 1:20 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] XML (was: PDF vs Access)
> 
> When reading and writing *my on data*, what advantage does XML give me?
> 
> Why would I want to "markup" the data with lots of overhead using tags
> when I already know what it means?
> 
> --
> Stuart
> 
> On 2 Sep 2009 at 8:45, Gustav Brock wrote:
> 
> > Hi Stuart
> > 
> > Charlotte is right. In .Net XML is fun, indeed when writing and
> reading your own data - piece of cake.
> > Further, there is no way avoiding XML - it is here to stay wether you
> like it or not.
> > 
> > /gustav
> > 
> 
> -- 
> AccessD mailing list
> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com


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