[Lmbench-users] Re: LMbench as gcc performance regression test?

[Linus Torvalds]

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> XML in general seems to be one of those over hyped, over used and solutions
> in search of a problem technologies.

Amen.

Color me stupid, but have you ever noticed something about XML? There are 
two types of XML out there:
 - truly horribly unreadable crap
 - well indented and barely readable

Notice the pattern? Indentation makes it almost readable.

I dare you. Prove me wrong.

Now, the interesting part about indentation is that once you do it, WHY 
THE F*CK DID YOU USE XML IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Tagged data is good. Indentation is good. But what is XML?

Somebody please tell me why it is better to write a config file like

<!-- This is an example -->
<host>myhost.com
   <passwd>Make1Up</passwd>
   <timeout>50</timeout>
</host>

<host>yourhost.org
   <passwd>Crappy4You</passwd>
   <timeout>0</timeout>
</host>

than it is to just be sane and write something readable? (Yeah, and don't 
flame me for writing obviously cruddy XML. I'm an XML illeterate, and the 
above looks better than most of the XML I've seen so far).

And no, LISP ain't it either. Even if it is better than XML (at least it 
gets rid of the verbiage, and when indented LISP syntax too can be 
readable. But see above).

What's wrong with good taste and simple syntax? Or what's wrong with me, 
for much prefering files that look like

	# This is an example
	myhost.com
		passwd Make1Up
		timeout 50

	yourhost.com
		passwd Crappy4You
		timeout 0

which is about a MILLION times more readable, and can equally easily be
parsed automatically (yes, you could make some meta-language for a sane
format like the above and parse it trivially. lex and yacc may not be
pretty, but hey, it's no worse than XML stuff).

(And don't tell me XML nests better. Bullshit. Or that plain text needs
escape characters. So does _anything_ that has structured data that isn't
fixed).

Ok. I'll go take my medication now. Sorry for the noise.

		Linus