Re: Way OT: Adam Smith and Software Markets

[Preben Randhol <randhol+news@pvv.org>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> flaws with respect to incompatibilities in different implementations. I
> share Dr. Leif's enthusiasm for XML in this regard and I think it would be a
> fine format for storage of lots of things. If someone were contemplating
> building an Ada-Office product, storing word processor, spreadsheet, rolodex
> data, etc in XML would leave the door open for lots of other players to
> utilize the data in some form. That would make it an attractive choice for
> individuals and organizations to adopt.

What I like about XML is that it is consistent and can be verified given
that a DTD is supplied. The XML Schemas thingy I cannot comment on as I
haven't look much at it yet.

However, what I find wrong is that one use it for *everything*. XML is a
rather verbose format and it is not something one wants to hand edit.
This is usually find as you probably have to tool that created it in the
first place. What puzzels me is why one consider XML to be a good choice
for SVG. I thought the point of SVG was to minimize the space needed to
represent a drawing and to be able to scale it. But that XML is chosen
seems to me that it is only the latter which is considered important.

But that said I think it is good that gnumeric (excel-like spreadsheet),
abiword, koffice etc... use XML as file format.

But to build an Ada-Office product, this only makes sense if one
rethinks the way a word processor/spreadsheet should be. Now most office
packages are clones of other office packages. Gnumeric, Abiword and
openOffice is similar to MS Word/Office. KWord is more similar to
FramMaker.

An Ada-Word which allowed you to type fastly whaterev you liked because
it could be set up with good and consistent templates. Which had some of
the box features of FramMaker, the typesetting powers of LaTeX. Which
had referencing and labeling and table of content functionality as good
as LaTeX would be very nice. And that it could work easily with other
tools.

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