For readability and it makes parsing an XML file easier.
But does it?
Try and find the bug if you forget to close a tag with , but if all your closing tags are labelled finding the bug is simple.
I'll agree with that. But thats only an issue if you're manually editting the XML using a text editor, so why doesn't the standard make it optional? - use the long form if you're creating it manually for easier debugging, but allow the short form if you're confident it will still be valid XML (as in balanced tags).
And I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- XML as most people see it is *just* the serialised form of an XML structure. The same as Databases don't actually have to store lists of data in the order that you read it in.
But as you quite rightly point out, having a standard, very accessible (if slightly verbose), method to create and edit data structures is indeed a god send!
Here's an idea (which I've also said before!) - imagine if all those config files were XML based. So you could edit them using a text editor - same as now except slightly more cumbersome to edit.
But we're agreed that being able to use a basic tool such as a text editor is a good thing right?
Okay, so next up from that would be an XML editor so you can navigate the structure to find the element you want to tweak. The nice thing here is that you've got a standard tool that works with any XML file and therefore any config file.
You can also build standard tools to work with these standard files so automating the update of a number of config files would be easy.
Now lets go back to the whole thing about serialisation -- we're just manipulating data structures. The text-based, serialised form of these structures is called XML. The good thing is being able to edit with a text editor -- available on *any* platform including non-current platforms where no active development is occuring.
But we're not limited, and we can build tools to work these structures more effeciently. And we don't *have* to use the serialised form if we don't want too -- it just happens that at this point in time, were the tools are not as evolved as they will be, it makes sense to use the text based form.
In the future we could for example have a file system that is structured like an XML file? So then all those separate config files become part of the one structure, and thus even easier to manage.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop now! My points are simply that, yep XML isn't perfect but don't get too hung up on it's being large-verbose-text-files, but it isn't -- thats just how it is currently being presented. Instead look at how it bridges the divide between old school proprietry, closed, binary formats, and the accessibility of text files.
If the data can legitimately be represented by one table, with no denormalization, then I agree a database may be overkill.
Agreed. I think there should be more of a drive to build a standardised DB-like API like MS ADO - this way you can use a simple flat file based system where you're dealing with small amounts of data and very few users, but (importantly) be able to scale up to a more industrial grade solution such as MySQL as needed.
For example, with ADO you can retrive data from an Excel worksheet much as you would from a database (I guess I could include Access here!).
I personally find this a very useful feature -- accepting that it isn't perfect and often you do actually need to make some changes!
Then again, I always find it a total pain in the arse not being able to use stored procedures unless the DB supports it, so working with Access is always a painful experience.
It's also a gun easily disabled by an electro-magnetic pulse, which is especially relevant since the military now has EMP bombs.
Oh no - a flaw in the design!!
But surely you could argue that a conventional bomb would "easily disable" the would-be assailant? So the argument is moot - if you had a way to deal with a person with a gun, you wouldn't find youself in the position of being shot in the first place?
So, yeah, using these guns in war might be a bad idea! But I don't think thats what they're designed for.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1
I think your theory is mostly complete. But here's an idea...
If we consider that many web browsers are turning into generic XML viewers, and if we also consider the idea of editor-enabling a web browser, then if MS include *all* the document information in one easy to process file/package, then there is a very large risk that people will in the future be able to edit their Word 2003 documents in (say) Mozilla!
So in one swoop, that makes MS Word replacable upsetting MS Office sales and also makes it easier for MS customers to switch platform, also risking Windows sales.
This theory isn't too far fetched - just think about how much you'd need to modify Mozilla to allow it to edit (an un-zipped) OpenOffice document!!
Personally I'm just wetting myself (no not literally.... oh no, shit I have) waiting for Moz/Gecko to allow full editting just for XML document -- anyone who hasn't anticipated this, please please think about the implications, because it does open up a whole bunch of applications (none of which I can think of right now).
Oh, for added thought food, consider XForms vs. MS InfoPath. In my opinion, InfoPath is designed to head off any functionality that might emerge from XForms.
All the best,
P.
Re:runas - Re:rootkit redundant.
on
Windows Rootkits
·
· Score: 1
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can use RunAs to run Windows Explorer as Administrator.
Everything else is fine -- but not Windows Explorer!!
This all depends on what data you're trying to preserve. Some data, such as say a users UI preference changes might be deemed "not that important" and thus you can risk storing these in ram until convenient to commit it somewhere.
Conversely, some data such as a financial transaction really needs to be commited straight away.
But commited means *you must* write it out to non-volatile storage (i.e. a disk) otherwise the transaction may be lost. So (I believe) most DB's write the update out to their transaction log very quickly and deal with updating the DB tables/indexes at a latter stage. Obviously, this all depends on if you need to allow other processes to access this data immediatly or not.
Personally, I don't think this represents anything new (**in true/. fashion, I have not read the article!!**) and I doubt this is faster than a well designed system anyway.
What it might offer however is:
1). A nicer interface for managing object persistence; 'cos it is ugly managing mapping objects to DB columns.
2). A clear guide to help people manage which objects need persisting to disk and which are less important.
But thats about all.
---
I'll now go and read the article - you can catch me later contradicting myself!
Windows 2000 (creates an admin account, then prompts you to create a user w/ full administrative rights) and Windows XP (see Win2k)
FYI - thats WinXP Pro! WinXP Home edition however supports both kinds of users - administrators *and* limited users, which is, err, nice.
Oh, and by default you're logged in as an Administrator, but if memory serves you do get the oportunity to create other users (both kinds!) during the installation.
I was the type of kid to lick 9v batteries as a child. Surprisingly I still had enough brain cells to get honours in college 15 years later though:)
Ermmm, so, is it bad licking 9v batteries then?
I'm just asking - not that I ever did anything like that!
Okay - breifly, I used to be sysadmin, tech-support, cable-guy, etc for a multi-user system with users hanging off of green-screen terminals.
Then the users started getting Windows PCs to replace their terminals.
They are *vastly* more difficult to support! The terminals maintained no "state" at all, so you could switch it off and back on again without upsetting any application you're running (except needing to force the screen to refresh). If a terminal develops a fault, you unplug the data cable (serial in our case), power lead, keybaord, and drop in a replacement, plug in and power up.
You can switch out a users desktop in a minute!
So the switch to Windows was for me a retro grade step.
Accepting that the users can now run Word & Excel and create whizzy graphics like never before! From a support perspective, the *major* issue for me was users manging to loose their toolbars or whatever in Word. You know its most likely something they did but its ridiculously labour intensive to reset the "state" of that user.
Why can't I just "default" all the users settings?
Windows isn't all bad, but it has some serious problems as regards support and maintenance. I know a lot of the problems I experienced could've been managed better if I'd actually been trained in NT admin, but regardless, I think there are some design issues with Windows admin in general.
There ought to be a stateless i-Opener like device in every hotel room in the developed world.
Agreed. Not just for hotels though - I think the general public of any country should expect to have access to information via public access terminals. And it makes sense that everytihng about these terminals should be open, including, I guess, the hardware design!
I like the idea of automatically booting to some type of shell with basic internet for just this purpose. Imagine flipping the switch, loging in, and getting a full Gentoo install with a completely bare system!
Excellent! I've so been waiting for a simple web terminal. Years ago I was supporting a system with users on green screen terminals. Then those terminals got replaced with Windows(TM) PCs 'cos someone thought they needed them so they could access the internet. Or something.
Anyway, Windows PC's are a nightmare to support. Terminals are easy. So for corporate use, I think a web terminal would be great (I did think of suggesting using a DreamCast, but then thought better of it!).
Simple. And plus, it means they should be cheaper because there's no MS tax. So thats nice too.
It would still be nice to have choice though. So if I could use MS dev tools but deploy to non-MS environments that'd be nice.
The worst thing (for me anyway) about MS is just not being able to trust them. I want to have choice - thus if I don't feel I'm getting value for money then I can switch.
So taking the business perspective, if I decide to use MS products, I am locked in for X years (X being 5 really when you're talking development). And for me, this is too many years! I don't know what the market is going to be like in (say) 5 years time, but with MS I will not have any choice regarding pricing. Anything I develop will cost my customers whatever MS chooses to charge for the platform (i.e..Net server [or Windows Server 2003?] and SQL Server). If margins are tight in 5 years, then that could place could be on a back-foot.
I would never think to call C# "C sharp" unless I was talking about musical notes....
Thats it!!!! Thats the key!
If MS ever try to enforce this patent, just turn up to the courts with some sheet music (don't bother with a lawyer!) and claim prior art!!
Well done - you've single handedly saved OSS. All hail (checks name tag) Jetson! Hurrah!
Please someone create a browser (just use the Moz code) and call it "I can't believe its not Internet Explorer" and have that as the User-Agent string!!
Honestly - it would be soo tops. That would appear in everones web access log, and they'd be wondering what it was, and so they'd download it too.
Or just add a "not internet exploder" user-agent string option to Moz? Because you shouldn't need the UA string anyway - just use the Accepts header!
Just change your user-agent string to read "Googlebot/2.1+(+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html )" and you'll be fine!! Go on - dare ya!!
Anyways, its clear they don't check their access logs anyways, otherwise they might've guessed there was a problem when the googlebot started nosing around.
Slashdot Mirror
For readability and it makes parsing an XML file easier.
But does it?
Try and find the bug if you forget to close a tag with , but if all your closing tags are labelled finding the bug is simple.
I'll agree with that. But thats only an issue if you're manually editting the XML using a text editor, so why doesn't the standard make it optional? - use the long form if you're creating it manually for easier debugging, but allow the short form if you're confident it will still be valid XML (as in balanced tags).
Indeedy.
And I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- XML as most people see it is *just* the serialised form of an XML structure. The same as Databases don't actually have to store lists of data in the order that you read it in.
But as you quite rightly point out, having a standard, very accessible (if slightly verbose), method to create and edit data structures is indeed a god send!
Here's an idea (which I've also said before!) - imagine if all those config files were XML based. So you could edit them using a text editor - same as now except slightly more cumbersome to edit.
But we're agreed that being able to use a basic tool such as a text editor is a good thing right?
Okay, so next up from that would be an XML editor so you can navigate the structure to find the element you want to tweak. The nice thing here is that you've got a standard tool that works with any XML file and therefore any config file.
You can also build standard tools to work with these standard files so automating the update of a number of config files would be easy.
Now lets go back to the whole thing about serialisation -- we're just manipulating data structures. The text-based, serialised form of these structures is called XML. The good thing is being able to edit with a text editor -- available on *any* platform including non-current platforms where no active development is occuring.
But we're not limited, and we can build tools to work these structures more effeciently. And we don't *have* to use the serialised form if we don't want too -- it just happens that at this point in time, were the tools are not as evolved as they will be, it makes sense to use the text based form.
In the future we could for example have a file system that is structured like an XML file? So then all those separate config files become part of the one structure, and thus even easier to manage.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop now! My points are simply that, yep XML isn't perfect but don't get too hung up on it's being large-verbose-text-files, but it isn't -- thats just how it is currently being presented. Instead look at how it bridges the divide between old school proprietry, closed, binary formats, and the accessibility of text files.
I've only just thought of this so before that "oh no, we can't do that 'coz" moment hits me, why do I have to close with ?
Surely if XML dictates that the tags must be balanced, then why can't I close anything with </> ?
That would at least reduce the size of XML files a little (or a lot in some cases).
A simple question - just begging for someone to point out the bleddin' obvious flaw... if there is one!
If the data can legitimately be represented by one table, with no denormalization, then I agree a database may be overkill.
Agreed. I think there should be more of a drive to build a standardised DB-like API like MS ADO - this way you can use a simple flat file based system where you're dealing with small amounts of data and very few users, but (importantly) be able to scale up to a more industrial grade solution such as MySQL as needed.
For example, with ADO you can retrive data from an Excel worksheet much as you would from a database (I guess I could include Access here!).
I personally find this a very useful feature -- accepting that it isn't perfect and often you do actually need to make some changes!
Then again, I always find it a total pain in the arse not being able to use stored procedures unless the DB supports it, so working with Access is always a painful experience.
It's also a gun easily disabled by an electro-magnetic pulse, which is especially relevant since the military now has EMP bombs.
Oh no - a flaw in the design!!
But surely you could argue that a conventional bomb would "easily disable" the would-be assailant? So the argument is moot - if you had a way to deal with a person with a gun, you wouldn't find youself in the position of being shot in the first place?
So, yeah, using these guns in war might be a bad idea! But I don't think thats what they're designed for.
I think your theory is mostly complete. But here's an idea...
If we consider that many web browsers are turning into generic XML viewers, and if we also consider the idea of editor-enabling a web browser, then if MS include *all* the document information in one easy to process file/package, then there is a very large risk that people will in the future be able to edit their Word 2003 documents in (say) Mozilla!
So in one swoop, that makes MS Word replacable upsetting MS Office sales and also makes it easier for MS customers to switch platform, also risking Windows sales.
This theory isn't too far fetched - just think about how much you'd need to modify Mozilla to allow it to edit (an un-zipped) OpenOffice document!!
Personally I'm just wetting myself (no not literally.... oh no, shit I have) waiting for Moz/Gecko to allow full editting just for XML document -- anyone who hasn't anticipated this, please please think about the implications, because it does open up a whole bunch of applications (none of which I can think of right now).
Oh, for added thought food, consider XForms vs. MS InfoPath. In my opinion, InfoPath is designed to head off any functionality that might emerge from XForms.
All the best,
P.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can use RunAs to run Windows Explorer as Administrator.
Everything else is fine -- but not Windows Explorer!!
This all depends on what data you're trying to preserve. Some data, such as say a users UI preference changes might be deemed "not that important" and thus you can risk storing these in ram until convenient to commit it somewhere.
/. fashion, I have not read the article!!**) and I doubt this is faster than a well designed system anyway.
Conversely, some data such as a financial transaction really needs to be commited straight away.
But commited means *you must* write it out to non-volatile storage (i.e. a disk) otherwise the transaction may be lost. So (I believe) most DB's write the update out to their transaction log very quickly and deal with updating the DB tables/indexes at a latter stage. Obviously, this all depends on if you need to allow other processes to access this data immediatly or not.
Personally, I don't think this represents anything new (**in true
What it might offer however is:
1). A nicer interface for managing object persistence; 'cos it is ugly managing mapping objects to DB columns.
2). A clear guide to help people manage which objects need persisting to disk and which are less important.
But thats about all.
---
I'll now go and read the article - you can catch me later contradicting myself!
Windows 2000 (creates an admin account, then prompts you to create a user w/ full administrative rights) and Windows XP (see Win2k)
FYI - thats WinXP Pro! WinXP Home edition however supports both kinds of users - administrators *and* limited users, which is, err, nice.
Oh, and by default you're logged in as an Administrator, but if memory serves you do get the oportunity to create other users (both kinds!) during the installation.
I was the type of kid to lick 9v batteries as a child. Surprisingly I still had enough brain cells to get honours in college 15 years later though :)
Ermmm, so, is it bad licking 9v batteries then?
I'm just asking - not that I ever did anything like that!
'cept a hacksaw company?
Okay - breifly, I used to be sysadmin, tech-support, cable-guy, etc for a multi-user system with users hanging off of green-screen terminals.
Then the users started getting Windows PCs to replace their terminals.
They are *vastly* more difficult to support! The terminals maintained no "state" at all, so you could switch it off and back on again without upsetting any application you're running (except needing to force the screen to refresh). If a terminal develops a fault, you unplug the data cable (serial in our case), power lead, keybaord, and drop in a replacement, plug in and power up.
You can switch out a users desktop in a minute!
So the switch to Windows was for me a retro grade step.
Accepting that the users can now run Word & Excel and create whizzy graphics like never before! From a support perspective, the *major* issue for me was users manging to loose their toolbars or whatever in Word. You know its most likely something they did but its ridiculously labour intensive to reset the "state" of that user.
Why can't I just "default" all the users settings?
Windows isn't all bad, but it has some serious problems as regards support and maintenance. I know a lot of the problems I experienced could've been managed better if I'd actually been trained in NT admin, but regardless, I think there are some design issues with Windows admin in general.
Do you mean Enron?
So nearly "Funny", but you cocked it up with a typo - Doh!
There ought to be a stateless i-Opener like device in every hotel room in the developed world.
Agreed. Not just for hotels though - I think the general public of any country should expect to have access to information via public access terminals. And it makes sense that everytihng about these terminals should be open, including, I guess, the hardware design!
I like the idea of automatically booting to some type of shell with basic internet for just this purpose. Imagine flipping the switch, loging in, and getting a full Gentoo install with a completely bare system!
Coolio!
Garth in Wayne's World 2 said something like "A Unix book. Cool!".
Thats my contribution.
Excellent! I've so been waiting for a simple web terminal. Years ago I was supporting a system with users on green screen terminals. Then those terminals got replaced with Windows(TM) PCs 'cos someone thought they needed them so they could access the internet. Or something.
Anyway, Windows PC's are a nightmare to support. Terminals are easy. So for corporate use, I think a web terminal would be great (I did think of suggesting using a DreamCast, but then thought better of it!).
Simple. And plus, it means they should be cheaper because there's no MS tax. So thats nice too.
It would still be nice to have choice though. So if I could use MS dev tools but deploy to non-MS environments that'd be nice.
.Net server [or Windows Server 2003?] and SQL Server). If margins are tight in 5 years, then that could place could be on a back-foot.
The worst thing (for me anyway) about MS is just not being able to trust them. I want to have choice - thus if I don't feel I'm getting value for money then I can switch.
So taking the business perspective, if I decide to use MS products, I am locked in for X years (X being 5 really when you're talking development). And for me, this is too many years! I don't know what the market is going to be like in (say) 5 years time, but with MS I will not have any choice regarding pricing. Anything I develop will cost my customers whatever MS chooses to charge for the platform (i.e.
I would never think to call C# "C sharp" unless I was talking about musical notes....
Thats it!!!! Thats the key!
If MS ever try to enforce this patent, just turn up to the courts with some sheet music (don't bother with a lawyer!) and claim prior art!!
Well done - you've single handedly saved OSS. All hail (checks name tag) Jetson! Hurrah!
In the UK it isn't called tic-tac-toe m'fraid! We call it noughts and crosses.
Yeah, but *everyone* uses metric these days - imperial measurements are just sooo last millenium.
Get with the times people!
Please someone create a browser (just use the Moz code) and call it "I can't believe its not Internet Explorer" and have that as the User-Agent string!!
Honestly - it would be soo tops. That would appear in everones web access log, and they'd be wondering what it was, and so they'd download it too.
Or just add a "not internet exploder" user-agent string option to Moz? Because you shouldn't need the UA string anyway - just use the Accepts header!
Please someone... do this? For me? For us?
I seem to recall that my Amiga 1200 was able to boot from a flash-disk in its PCMCIA card slot.
How ahead of its time was that machine?!!
And windows 2000 if memory serves me correctly.
Just change your user-agent string to read "Googlebot/2.1+(+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html )" and you'll be fine!! Go on - dare ya!!
Anyways, its clear they don't check their access logs anyways, otherwise they might've guessed there was a problem when the googlebot started nosing around.
Sigh!