[Freeciv-Dev] Re: info in savegames [Was Re: non-existent technologies]

[Ross Wetmore <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Dorje Short wrote:
> Christian Knoke wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:37:40PM -0500, Jason Dorje Short wrote:
> > > Mike Kaufman wrote:
> > > > On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:21:19PM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, Christian Knoke wrote:
> > > > > > - Use XML for savegames (and probably everything else). You can keep
> > > > > > the map save format intact with XML.
> > > How, exactly?
> > I can't tell you *exactly*, but we need to use a library for the XML
> > parser. It might look like this:
> Yes, I'm familiar with XML.  What I don't see is how XML will make it 
> easier to store the data in a 'better' way.
XML will ...
1)  make everything bigger, bulkier and less readable
2)  allow one to write a trivial HTML viewer to display the unreadable
    savegame files
3)  require an extra resource intensive processing module and resource
    files such as a DTD to drive it
4)  allow one to completely define the data through attributes specified
    by the (versionned?) DTD (i.e. the grammar rules for savegame files)
5)  tend to happily ignore data its DTD and associated document processing
    code doesn't understand, thus allowing one to read new savegames into
    older games with only the understood data being mapped into memory,
    or vice versa (i.e. substitute DOM robustness/blindnesss for that of
    current code)
6)  allow you to "customize" savegame data as it is read in or by various
    "stylesheet" transformations (for tags that are deemed to be user
    customizable).
7)  solve every data transmission problem imaginable till the end-of-time
    allowing Freeciv savegames to be universally shipped and understood by
    any platform or program that wants them.

Some might be intriguing and worthwhile, some are just the current fad,
i.e. a way to mumble something avant garde without understanding what you
are saying.

I suspect it just isn't worth it in this case.

> XML is really very similar to the registry format freeciv uses; the main 
> difference is the registry format has limited depth.  But I don't see 
> how this is a problem...
> jason
Cheers,
RossW
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