[mapserver-users] XML mapfile?

[Norman Vine]

Steve Lime writes:
>
>Man, what a chatty list recently. A couple of things are clear:
>
>  - XML certainly will have some role to play
>  - nobody wants to see the current format go away anytime soon
>
>That's good cause that was my plan all along. <g> If anyone has noticed
>a crude mapfile.dtd has been part of the distribution for some time now.
>I found it a convenient way to document the format. Clearly though
>schemas are the way to go.
>
>Anyway, I might suggest taking this discussion offline to another list,
>perhaps mapserver-xml or something along those lines. I can request that
>the UMN set that up for us. Sound reasonable?

A separate list sounds like a good idea

>>>> Mike Haarman wrote:
>>On Wed, 22 May 2002, Norman Vine wrote:
>
>> FWIW  -  IMHO and AFAIK xml though an ASCII format and a very useful
>> one at that,  was NOT designed to ever be directly manipulated by
>humans
>
>*XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.*
>
>That was number six on the top ten original design goals for XML.  

Yes,  BUT IMHO 'human-legible and reasonably clear' does not imply 
human-manipulable and although I realize that 'experts' routinely do so,
non-experts IMHO are much more comfortable in a 'domain specific'
language or a 'higher-level tool then a text editor,  hence my seconding
the idea of a XML to MapFile translator as a first step :-)

Cheers

Norman