SEUL: Re: XML Interface

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

I read your mail from Nils. As leader of the SEUL project (simple end-user
linux, www.seul.org), I especially noticed your comment about the 'end user
experience'. Many of the projects I've been watching and working with over
the past year have considered XML, and most of them have failed to make the
XML part of their project work.
(For more discussion of that, look at
http://lists.styx.net/archives/public/freehive-list/1998-December/000235.html
and followup posts from Kendall Clark and others.)

I'm curious what sorts of things you're doing to 'motivate' the groups to
change config file formats. My general impression is that the tools are out
there for manipulating XML files, but there isn't enough information and
education out there about what to use for which application, and how to make
each tool work well.

I would be very interested in hearing about a centralized "how to do your
project with XML" howto page along with some application-oriented
introductions, rather than the theory-based discussion that most faqs and
docs seem to focus on. I would be willing to help out in guiding the shape
of said docs/pages.

Do you have a website for your 'efforts'? (Any archive of mail, for
instance?)

Thanks,
--Roger (I don't speak for debian)

> Brian-
>   I'm forwarding this to the debian-doc group which deals with these 
> issues.  Please subscribe to their mailing list, and I'm sure they'll be 
> able to help you further.  I'm cc:ing them in this mail.
> 
> Regards,
> Nils.
> 
> ------- Forwarded Message
> 
> From: "Brian Hunt" <bmh@canada.com>
> To: <press@debian.org>
> Subject: XML Interface
> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 13:25:46 -0000
> 
> (Please forward where appropriate.  With regard to the Integrated SGML
> environment)
> 
> Hello,
> 
> The support of SGML and XML in Debian Linux comes as a very pleasant, very
> unexpected, surprise.  At this moment I am motivating several groups of
> Linux developers, including XFree86, Samba, and Apache, to move their
> configuration files to XML based from the current text-oriented type.
> 
> At the moment the lack of adequate tools and XML documentation keeps this
> endeavor from moving ahead as fast as it might.  My first concern is
> creating the tools necessary for an end user to take advantage of XML
> configuration files.  Then porting all the current configuration sets to
> XML.  This is not a trivial task, and the more members of development teams
> working towards it, the faster it will be implemented.  My primary concern
> is with the end user experience.
> 
> Please let me know how we can unify these common efforts.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Brian M. Hunt
> Undergrad Research, AI & Theory
> University of New Brunwsick
> Fredericton, NB
> email: bmh@canada.com
> 
> ------- End of Forwarded Message