Code.Implant

This is going to be a short post, mainly because I’m having a very busy week in preparation for a weekend out of town, but I’m a little bothered by a recent blog post from a popular software development blogger that pretty much berates the eXtensible Markup Language, aka XML.

Let me just come out and say it: I like XML. There, I said it. XML is a great technology.

I recognize its bloat, its parsers’ tendencies to be slow (tinyxml isn’t so bad), its verbosity, and its lack of real structure. But you know, for a lot of what I do, those things aren’t so bad.

XML, like any other technology, has its time and place. You don’t want to use XML to store thousands upon thousands of records that would best reside in a relational database like SQL Server or mySQL. You also don’t want to use it as a pseudo-scripting language, as I’ve seen some of my colleagues try to do.

XML has made my life easier as a programmer. I don’t have to write file parsers anymore. My streaming code consists of about 50 lines of code for a variety of data formats. I can easily develop tools to automagically save and load the XML data for me, without having to worry about syntax errors, and I can manually read the format when and if I need to.

But again, it is a technology. It is a tool that we can use as software developers to make better products. Those who say Technology X sucks or Technology Y has a deficiency so it’s no good are just as ignorant as the high school haX0r kid on AOL who reformats his mother’s hard drive while trying to write a virus in VBScript.

Knowing when to use and not use technologies is a sign of a mature software developer. If a technology doesn’t suit you and your purpose, then don’t use it. But don’t tell others it sucks because you couldn’t use it, especially when it may not be the technology, but the user, who has the deficiency.

The truth is that if a technology isn’t addressing developers’ needs, then eventually it will get phased out anyway. It’s just like the capital market: if a product is not addressing others’ needs, then it will leave the marketplace. Anyone still using BBS’s? What about the original CGI for websites? Didn’t think so.

Back to XML. It has permeated nearly every aspect of the software industry, and I’m sure in another 10 years we’ll still be using it or some later version of it, so it can’t be that bad. It has its annoyances, but no technology is perfect either.

Apologies for the slight rant, but ignorance is blissfully idiotic.

Filed under: Development, Rant