[Openstreetmap] Re: [Openstreetmap-dev] OSM's Schema - moving it forwards.

[Tommy Persson]

> From: Ben Gimpert <ben at somethingmodern.com>
> 
> But for most problems CSV *is* enough! Since the underlying data layer
> is usually an RDBMS, why shoe-horn your data into into a tree if it's
> gonna end up as tables and columns? You could preach to me about layers

Even if the data is flat it is better to have it in a format where you
from a data file can see what the fields are called.

   <wpt lat="58" lon="15"/>

is muck better than

   58,16

As I see it one of the most important thing with XML is that property
plus that problem with quoting and such things are solved.  In CSV
there is always trouble when you have a comma in the data and a lot of
program that claims to handle CVS cannot handle it.

The issue of the number of levels and so on is orthogonal to the basic
exchange format.


> I think you're confusing two distinct issues: Good standards must be
> open, *and* incrementally developed.

The probability for success inreases a lot at least with this
approach.

> XML is almost a decade old, and most serious academics and hackers avoid
> it like the plague. Now I admit this is very anecdotal, but it shouldn't

Academics?  In what context?  

> be ignored. Seriously: Why didn't the Apache group use proper XML for
> their v2 configuration files? Because XML is a technical failure, and a
> marketing success.

Yes, things can be overused.  But before XML or SGML the situation was
much worse with respect to different format and exhange of data.

/Tommy