Subj : human-readable nodelist format
To   : Micael Bulow
From : Jan Vermeulen
Date : Fri Dec 20 2002 02:39 am

    Quoting Micael Bulow on Mon 16 Dec 2002  2:45 to Jan Vermeulen:

 mb>> The nodelist is to be distributed and read by machines, not humans.

 JV>>     Not quite:
 JV>>     the nodelist is read by humans and machines

 mb> Are you reading the nodelist for brekfast, or what? =)

    I have it for lunch on Friday and for dinner on Tuesday ;-))

    No kidding: I write part of the nodelist, every week. My part's title is 
REGION28.xxx.

    And I intend to continue to write it as I've always done, using a plain dos 
text editor.

    Why?

    First: because I'm good at it ;-)
    Second: because changes are easily made; moving a node from one
        hub to another takes no more than a few keystrokes and 2 seconds.
    Third: because file wide changes are a matter of less than seven
        keystrokes
    Fourth and most important: that's the way my ZC wants them

 JV>>     The cost of transfer of ZIPped XML over phone lines is 1.23
 JV>> times the cost of the same ZIPped file in ASCII style.

 mb> Yes, that's why we are applying an appropriate stylesheet for those
 mb> who needs the old format.

    The current and not yet old format is needed by most, but that I have 
explained before and I hate to repeate myself.

 mb> It is much harder to convert from the old format to XML then from
 mb> XML to the old format since there is a standard XML parser in every
 mb> modern programing language, script language and platform today.

    And you're incapable of writing a nodelist parser in order to obtain an XML 
database?


    -=<[ JV ]>=-

 
* Origin: The Poor Man's Workstation -- Wormerveer NL (2:280/100)

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