Date:         Mon, 9 Oct 2000 04:00:02 GMT
Reply-To:     David Schreiber <david_schreiber@MY-DEJA.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         David Schreiber <david_schreiber@MY-DEJA.COM>
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
Subject:      Re: SAS-> XML .. Great!..... Now What?

In article <39DE4931.12D53618@1stconnect.com>,
  Stephen Hirsch <sth@1stconnect.com> wrote:

>What you say is true, as far as parsing syntax is concerned. My point
> is that parsing syntax (even so far as the entire effort of coding) is
> a tiny proportion of the effort necessary to deliver an app. The
creation
> of the DTD is much, much more difficult and more important. It is the
data
> model, after all.


I wouldn't call writing a parser easy.  Unless the data is very simple
(such as a CSV file), a parser can be a very complex exercise.  Even
the simplest tree based data structure can take hours to code for.
Depending on the language it could be a real pain (try woking with a
binary tree in SQL...)

Creating a good data model can also be difficult, but that depends on
the scale of the data you're dealing with.  You can create a relatively
simple data structure in XML and have that data available to other apps
in hours - and bypass the whole mess of worring about whether your
other apps can parse your data format (as long as you have an API
handy).


--
http://www.caverock.net.nz/~davids
Welcome to nowhere fast. Nothing here ever lasts.


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