Down With XML!
I was just reading Howard Lewis Ship’s Blog for some updates on Tapestry and Hivemind. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that he is thinking of ditching XML in favor of something that is not so “hard to type, hard to read, hard to edit” and isn’t so challenging to parse. Can you believe it? A Java guy calling down XML! Yay!
His article Let’s boil the ocean: Simple Data Language talks about his proposed “Simple Data Language”, which removes the brackets and is much easier on the eye. He mentions YAML in passing, but given that he’s already started implementing his SDL for Hivemind, I suspect he’s not seriously considering YAML. Which is unfortunate, but not unsurprising.
His proposed SDL has some advantages over YAML, frankly, although I think YAML is, in general, more expressive. I’ll be watching the progress on SDL closely, to see how he handles some of the limitations his proposed syntax will impose.
