When should you not use XML (3)

Xml

When the problem is very simple
When it could produce its huge file
When the application is "disposable"
When you need to use Unix line-oriented text processing tools
There is room for discussion when it comes to using XML for communication between programs. But when it comes to human-computer communications, such as programming languages or configuration files, XML may provide the most unnatural human-machine interface.

My argument boils down to a problem between people and computer hardware. Humans are good at dealing with hidden structures, and computers want to deal with clear structures that are designed to be good at what we are not good at. The closer the computer language is to the natural language, the more natural it is to humans, but the more difficult it is to achieve. In this tug of war competition, a sound compromise might be to use punctuation and formula to add some natural language subsets, which is the most obvious and useful example. To my surprise, the dominance of this classical approach has been replaced by an xml-based explicit structure language, which is very easy to identify (download a free standard XML parser), but its input and reading are extremely unnatural and laborious. It's important to understand that it takes experience and resources to balance this in the interface language, but I want you to at least realize that the computer-friendly XML syntax is unfriendly to humans.

Let me leave you with some advice: understand the language, their design and implementation. Consider the existence of XML itself to "fix" the language complexity and implementation difficulties of SGML. Computer language skills are one of the most useful weapons available because it is the one that covers every application of computing. As a major developer of ANTLR-a popular parser/converter builder (see Resources), I have received questions from users in all walks of life: A biologist who makes DNA pattern recognition, a NASA scientist who automatically constructs a communications library from space exploration Specification RTF documents, for every conceivable The person who built the configuration file for the program, and so on. The Jguru.com portal uses many languages and parsers from the object-mode specification to the HTML cleaner. One thing to know is that computer language skills enable you to produce extremely flexible and powerful software, not just compilers for new programming languages. And, the most important thing about my concern here is that you will be able to generate a user-friendly text interface for humanity.

Resources

Is it entirely agreeable to Terence Parr? Or do you disagree with his point of view? Please click on the discussion icon at the top or bottom of the page to let him (and your colleagues) know.
View ANTLR, a very popular parser/converter, designed by the author of this article to build all kinds of parsers for configuration files and other HMI problems.
Practical Computer Language recognition and translation are drafts of a book I intend to complete, but at the same time it is thought that the previous chapters are very easy to understand. You should like this chapter on hands-on building recognizers as an excellent introduction to the technology.
If you need an XML parser for your data, see IBM's XML Parser for Java, also known as xml4j.
Please browse jguru.com, the Java world you see. From more than 5,000 FAQ items on 44 different topics, articles from the Java world, and structured forums to ask questions.
Xbeans allows you to clip data on the Internet.
Check SOAP to see how XML facilitates interoperability.
IBM Reference
Find more XML references on the DeveloperWorks XML zone.
Solution 2001 the developer conference will be held in San Francisco from August 13 to 16th; Please search for or view descriptions of more than 230 meetings in Agendabuilder. More than 20 meetings focused on XML and related technologies, including:
Hands-on:integrating XML with DB2
Hands-on:voice XML tools/building Killer Apps
XSL by Example:an Introduction to XML transformations
Parsing and programming XML Documents using Java Technology

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