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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2002-10 > 1033490745


From: Martin Djernaes <>
Subject: Re: A new family history data model
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 09:45:45 -0700
References: <3D92C2CE.56D990C3@pjsey.demon.co.uk> <3D995F0D.16127BA3@pjsey.demon.co.uk>


"Peter J. Seymour" wrote:

> One question continues to interest me and that is why are people so
> interested in XML. People are very keen that my program should support
> it, but nobody can tell me how it would be beneficial. (Yes, I have
> heard comments to the effect that sophisticated parsers and utilities
> are available, but how does that actually help you?).

That depend on who is who?

If you ask how it helps Mr. Average sitting in front of his 5year old
computer, in the corner of the master bed room, then the answer is - not
directly.

But if the answer is the one actually developing programs, tools etc. to
edit, merge etc. these dataset together, this does indeed make a
difference.

More and more database systems will support XML formatted data directly.
You can make a program/tool which interfaces with a plain (xml) text
file as well as a xml capable database. This makes things more "simple".
When you want to create a database, people have for years turned to
dBase, access etc. The reasoning for this is that these systems parse
the database information better than any programmer can do it (ok, this
is an exaggeration..) and so it is with xml. See it as a new "dBase"
format.

Martin

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