Re: Global Namespaces

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:00 PM, John Locke <..hidden..> wrote:
> I do think being able to accommodate XML is a necessity, especially for
> integrating with all of the other systems that use that as a medium.

This gets into the representation stuff I was talking about before.
Namely that some of the formats we want to address (XML, JSON, etc)
can be accurate representations of our internal structures so data can
be serialized to/from them, only converting between data structures
where necessary for integration work.

OTOH, some other formats (EDI, CSV, etc) are going to use a flat
namespace, so being able to serialize to/from them is going to require
a different representation.

As long as we have documented representations of all objects in both
these forms, we can support just about any interchange format that we
come across.

A lot of this comes down to the idea that LedgerSMB should be usable
as infrastructure, not just as a web application.

> However, put me in the JSON camp for actual new application
> development--far less wordy, a lot quicker in browser-based application,
> and just as easy to parse/widespread library support.

I agree here, actually.  One thing I dislike about XML/SGML formats is
their wordiness.  If I am debugging, I would prefer clear, uncluttered
formats.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers