APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 2002-11 > 1036171201


From: Jerry Fitzpatrick <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Place Names
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 11:20:01 -0600


Richard,

For what it's worth, I agree with you (please note my reply to Ray).

GEDCOM 5.5 is well-designed and well-documented. For its scope, the spec
is about as complete and unambiguous as it can be.

The import/export implementations cause the lion's share of the
problems. It's a little surprising because GEDCOM data is quite easy to
generate and parse (although ANSEL character encoding presents a few
snags).

Some programs do things explicitly forbidden by the spec. Other programs
ignore things specifically required by the spec. It's really a shame!

Jerry

---
Jerry Fitzpatrick
Software Renovation Corporation

http://www.SoftwareRenovation.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Richard A. Pence [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 7:38 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [APG] Place Names

Ray Beere Johnson II <> wrote:

> GEDCOM is a disaster in my opinion. Often,
> importing data in this format is nearly as much
> work as entering it by hand; much more work in
> the case of a 'buggy' program that dumped garbage
> into my file along with the data.

GEDCOM has always been a convenient whipping boy. But the fact is that
most
of what it gets blamed for is not its fault at all.

Item: The problems you describe above arise NOT from the GEDCOM
specification, but from poor implementation of the specification by
developers and - more often - the manner in which the data is entered by
the
user who created the file.

Your message properly stressed the importance of flexibility in a
genealogy
program. However, GEDCOM would have to be magic for it to
transfer/translate
one person's idea of what user-created fields into the structure of user
fields created by another user.

The more user-defined fields there are, the less chance there is that
the
data will properly transfer, particularly if the user doesn't follow the
suggestions of the developer when creating the user-defined fields.

Admittedly, transferring data from one user to another can be a disaster
-
but it is not GEDCOM which created the disaster. It is faulty
implementation
and users who fail to follow recommendations about creating their own
data
fields that cause the problems. GEDCOM is merely the messenger.

BTW - Rule One is: NEVER import a GEDCOM file directly into your
database -
always import it into a new file and careully edit it. Then you can
safely
import those portions you are able to verfity without fear of
contaminating
your file.

And consider this: There are genealogy programs that cannot correctly
import
a GEDCOM it just exported! Whose fault is that? I submit that it is
either
the misdeed of the GEDCOM utility or the user's failure to understand
how to
create his or her own defined fields.

Regards,
Richard A. Pence, Fairfax, VA 22030
Pence Family History <http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/>;



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