RE: [computer-go] GTP and Tourney in SmartGo 1.4

["Mark Boon" <tesuji@xxxxxxxxx>]

To say that using XML is only making it buzzword compliant is exaggerating
things. I disagree with you on the point that I think XML does provide all
three characteristics of simplicity, extensibility and readablity.

I do agree, as I already wrote, that XML tends to get a bit too verbose. One
has to be careful to make a good definition to remain both readable and
compact. And linking in an XML parser is a bit of a drawback too. Still,
parsers are easy to come by these days (Windows comes with one in a system
DLL I think) and I prefer including a library, even a big one, over writing
the code all over again myself any time.

And what's complicated about XML parsing? Generally, creating a DOM-tree out
of XML takes two or three lines of code.

Not that I have anything against GTP per se. It's all a matter of cheques
and balances.

My question is though: are you 100% sure that any future addition to GTP
doesn't break any or all the parsers already out there? (Which IMO are all
but one written too many already.) Even in XML I wouldn't be 100% sure, and
that has built-in that you can easily ignore any elements or parameters your
program doesn't understand.

-----Original Message-----
From: computer-go-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:computer-go-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Don Dailey
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 15:20
To: computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [computer-go] GTP and Tourney in SmartGo 1.4



Hey guys,

The whole  idea of gtp  was simplicity, extensibility  and readablity.
XML only  has one  of those characteristics  (depending on  who you're
asking), extensibility.

Yes, readability is  supposed to be a strength of XML  but in the real
world it's  barely readable  and only if  it's very  nicely formatted.
The real information is a tiny  fraction of the data being sent buried
inside verbose tags.

A big drawback of XML in  my opinion is the complicated parsing.  That
means you have to link in libraries  to help you do it.  This tells me
it's too heavyweight for what we actually need.

And what  would be the actual  gain?  That it would  make our software
more buzzword compliant?

- Don



   Mark Boon wrote:
   > For Go development I see great value in a protocol that enables
automatic
   > testing and game-play. As far as I know, the only way to achieve
platform
   > and programming-language independency is using a simple socket
connection
   > over TCP/IP. XML seems to be the obvious choice to define the protocol
in,
   > as it provides flexibility for future extensions to the protocol. Also
   > there are many standard libraries that facilitate parsing, navigation
and
   > production of the necessary XML.

   Please point me to any _communication protocol_ that is based on XML.

   Paul

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