Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP ??: Critical News Reporting

["Jan Kundrát" <jkt@gentoo.org>]

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On Tuesday 01 of November 2005 19:25 Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 17:22:29 +0100 Jan Kundrát <jkt@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | What's wrong with XML format similar to the one that is used for our
> | GLSAs?
>
> 1. Portage does not handle XML. Portage will not handle XML in the
> near future.

How will it handle GLSAs then? [1]

> 5. XML is merely adding another problem to the one we have already.

Could you please explain?

> There is no XML in this GLEP for the same reasons that there is no
> Java, CORBA, EJBs, web services, on demand computing initiatives or
> invisible pink unicorns.

I'm not sure if our GLSAs use PHP, ODBC, ASP, SOAP, computer grids or 
invisible pink unicorns while I'm pretty sure they do use XML.

> I have an eselect module which can read these news files. The whole
> thing is about the same size as the DTD would need to be for an
> XML-based solution. I have a parser written for the format in question.
> The whole thing is smaller than the initialisation code for an off the
> shelf XML parser.

Great. Why haven't you just used existing code from `glsa-check`, BTW?

> It's not a question of "what's wrong with XML?". It's a question of
> "what advantage would we gain by strapping a giant flapping wet kipper
> to a bicycle?".

Or (a little bit rephrased) "why should we stick with consistent file 
formats".

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/portage/glsa-integration.xml

Cheers,
-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth

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