[ODE] ODE GUI Editor #2...

[John Miles]

I agree with Steve's comments below.  I don't have an opinion one way or
another about XML, but a text-based format of some kind is the only way to
go.

Back in the days of 16 MHz 80286 machines with 20 MB hard drives there were
good reasons to use binary file formats, but they are all invalid now.

-- jm

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ode-bounces at q12.org [mailto:ode-bounces at q12.org]On Behalf Of Steve
> Baker
> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:54 PM
> To: ode
> Subject: Re: [ODE] ODE GUI Editor #2...
>
>
> William Denniss wrote:
>
> >>But XML? Hmm... I don't know. Do I really need it? The only advantage I
> >>see is that if you have a corrupt file you could fix it with a text
> >>editor. But as long as there is GUI for all functions you'd never need
> >>to edit the text, and then it'll only take more disk space. ?
> >
> >
> > I was more thinking of here how to easily import the simulation into a
> > custom ODE application :)  Being able to read some text format is nicer
> > as (among other things) it can be self-documenting and easy to parse -
> > and XML is one such choice.
>
> If you can both read and write an ASCII format then people can do certain
> bulk changes using a text editor.  For example, if you need to change the
> stiffness of 50 springs, it'll be a 10 second operation in a text
> editor - but
> with most GUI's, it requires clicking on each one, popping up a
> dialog box,
> changing the number and clicking OK.  That can change that 10 second job
> into something unbearably tedious that could take you half an hour.
>
> A second advantage is that it makes it much easier for you to change the
> file format in the future.  XML files are inherently extensible - and
> compatible readers know how to skip over things they don't recognise.
>
> Doing that with a simple binary format can get quite painful.
>