Hi David,

quote:

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This article assumes that XML is the way of the future, which is a false assumption.

XML has some significant problems.

1. Performance. I'm not talking about file size (and the resulting poor performance over networks), but about that fact that parsing XML is an intensive process. For one thing, you must read the entire data structure into memory because you must read to the closing tag. CSV has no such problems.

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funny anecdote on this happened yesterday.

I was in a project meeting with our IT staff. Basically to discuss how to get mutual fund quotes into our mainframe.

When it comes to the 'which format' question, I said with your post in mind, hey, let's do it with XML. It's universal, trendy blabla..

Before going on, I must say, I really like our mainframe guys. They are innovative, flexible, open for new thoughts.

Guess what they said!

No, no XML, only CSV, that just fine. We can reuse existing code.. and anyway who cares about XML.

Well!

Cheers,

Frank