[Elecraft] [K3] UTILITY Improvements

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Lee Buller wrote:
> 
> Why not use XML so interchange could be universal? That way people
> can send each other their set ups. That could be interesting. And,
> you could change set ups depending on what you want to do

XML syntax, on its own, is definitely not sufficient to achieve this and 
neither is it necessary.

My impression is that many people use XML for its buzzword value, when a 
simpler text based format would be appropriate and easier for humans to 
read and hand edit.

XML has enough gotchas in the syntax that hand editing risks creating 
invalid syntax.  For that reason, it is important that one uses a proper 
XML parsing library, rather than ad hoc parsing code, otherwise the 
invalid forms may become the de facto standard.  At one stage, the BOINC 
(SETI at Home) parser had this problem.

More importantly there is a lot of semantics in creating a good XML 
schema.  In particular one needs to use standardised microformats. 
Microformats are structured parameters or text sections which often 
don't get their structure from XML markup. One example given here uses 
two different date and time formats, neither of which conforms with the 
subset of ISO date format that is the standard for dates in XML schemas. 
  It also manages to represent a single, rather complex microformat, as 
though it were two different ones.  In my view, that second case should 
have been structured with XML.

-- 
David Woolley
"The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to 
Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>