[ODE] XML ODE Data Interchange Format (revision 5)

[Steve Baker]

There is a trade-off here between complexity in the file writer and
complexity in the file reader.

I'm strongly of the opinion that the complexity should be pushed as
far as possible into the writer - because there will be more readers
written than writers - and because readers tend to be more time-critical
than writers because they are used in level readers in games and such.

So, where possible, DO NOT provide a lot of convenient looking options
in the file format...these can possibly help the writer by making it
do less conversions and data shuffling - but it can't possibly help
the reader who has to be able to correctly parse a dozen different
variations on each command and do data shuffling and conversions
for all possible variations.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>    WorkEmail: <sjbaker at link.com>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M-
V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----