Re: GDB/XMI (XML Machine Interface)

[Bob Rossi <bob at brasko dot net>]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 03:34:19AM -0700, Felix Lee wrote:
> Chris Friesen <gdb001@speakeasy.net>:
> >     Didn't see a big benefit in using one structured data format over 
> > the other. All things being equal, finds pages of MI easier to read 
> > than the order of magnitude longer output that XML would be.
> 
> yeah, that's my main issue with xml, it's not very human
> readable, and it doesn't seem particularly easy to machine
> process either, but the canned libraries hide most of that.

I think the main point behind XML is that it is human readable. Also,
every XML developer knows how to read it. Meaning that, I believe it
would take less time to learn how to read it, than some open source
project's grammar. BTW, you don't even have to learn how to read it,
because you don't have to parse it :) The only thing you need to know,
is the spec.

> this isn't a strong objection, interoperability takes precedence.
> I think an argument for xml would be more convincing if there
> were more than one debugger talking the same protocol.  

I can see that people are interested in writing front ends that parse the
output of the MI. Why? Do the same people enjoy writing linked lists
over and over again? Do you see my point? Parsing the output of MI is
completely a waste of time. 

> if the
> schema is sensible, it shouldn't be too hard to make the python
> debugger and the perl debugger and so forth speak the same xml.
> --

This is a great point.

Bob Rossi