Non Sucking YAML parser

[Dirk Koopman]

On Sat, 2006-09-23 at 08:29 +0100, David Cantrell wrote: 
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 02:59:25PM +0000, Robin Berjon wrote:
> > On Sep 19, 2006, at 13:49, David Cantrell wrote:
> > >On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 03:30:32PM +0000, Robin Berjon wrote:
> > >>On Sep 18, 2006, at 13:27, David Cantrell wrote:
> > >>>with this has to know that <person><title>...</title></person> is
> > >>>different from <book><title>...</title></book> and deal with the two
> > >>>titles appropriately.
> > >>Have you bothered reading my previous email on the topic?
> > >Yes.  Either you didn't explain yourself very well or I didn't
> > >understand.
> > Any specifics? From what you just said above, you seem to be making  
> > the argument that at the cost of massive amounts of extra verbosity,  
> > you can do away with namespaces.
> 
> Huh?  How is this:
> 
> <person>
>   <title>Mr</title>
>   <surname>Cantrell</surname>
>   <givenname>David</givenname>
>   ...
> </person>
> etc
> 
> massively more verbose than using namespaces?  In fact, it *is*
> namespaces - at least in the generic sense even if it lacks the
> punctuation to satisfy XML - just without the extra syntax. That means
> that it's easier to write the software to parse the file correctly,
> and easier to edit the file by hand too.  Sounds like a win all round.
> 

Hmm... 

This is a philosophical problem to do with what one thinks XML is for
and how ubiquitous one thinks a schema is going to be.

Most sane people use XML as a means of exchange between two systems,
each side can either agree on a common schema or, if the can't or won't,
present their own. 

It seems to me that namespaces have been invented as a means of
enforcing (or enabling [for the less proscriptive]) some commonality.
Rather like the UN EdiFact white book. Afterall you may want to
represent a person as above, but others will want all the clause names
in StudleyCaps and that, of course, means the XML is completely
different.

However, I have yet to come across an XML conversation that needs "cross
system" namespace support. Someone has simply decided that they have
illusions of grandeur (or they are the British Government), don't
understand the true issues or simply do what they see in all the text
books.  

I avoid namespaces like the plague. Too much added noise, too much added
and completely useless information because the URLS are always either
inaccessible or just plain wrong. And just another thing to get wrong.

Dirk