Xml in packaging system

[Richard Coleman]

I have found that 99% of the time that a project starts with the 
statement "FOO is overkill, let's just do something simple", the project 
will grow in complexity until you wish you had started with the more 
comprehensive approach the first time.  I always get this feeling when I 
look at the POD (plain old documentation) used by the Perl folks.  I'm 
sure people on the forums can think of many other examples.

I'm not an XML junkie, but I think it fits pretty good in the space we 
are discussing.

And remember that programmers are notorious for underestimating the 
complexity of a project.  I've been guilty of it so many times, I've 
lost count.

ps. I don't really want to get into a discussion about POD.  I was just 
using it as an example.

Richard Coleman
richardcoleman at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
James Frazer wrote:
I have to agree with David on this.

XML in the packaging system is kind of over-kill, in my opinion.

I'm sure the OpenDarwin developers at one point considered XML for 
DarwinPorts but decided that it didn't provide any advantages (correct 
me if I'm wrong).  In the end they settled with TCL key-value pairs 
because they were simple and easy to read/write (and dports was written 
in TCL anyway).

Not to say XML doesn't have useful applications, I just think it would 
make things slightly more complicated than they need be.

I personally think the design of DarwinPorts is going to turn out pretty 
good.  Unfortunately I do not yet have a spare machine that I can 
install DFBSD and dports on to test/tinker with.  Nobody seemed overly 
enthusiastic about dports when I mentioned it before so maybe it will 
just turn into one of those things I'll never get around to -- 
eventually I'll get to it -- I hope.