Re: XML for Packages.gz

[eichin@thok.org (Mark W. Eichin)]

Given that the file is already produced by automatic tools, no,
converting it to XML doesn't add any magic.  *Especially* if the
conversion can be accomplished by a 100 line script - any tool that
would benefit from an XML form can just concoct one...

As for building documentation - no, that takes literate and attentive
*human* effort.  Arbitrary layers of syntax don't really contribute.

Feel free to prove me wrong by *building* such tools, and showing that
they do something qualitatively more interesting :-)  XML is cool, but
it is not a substitute for actual work.

Note also, if you're going down this path, that there is an extant
*package* format "standard" that is XML based (ie the package *itself*
is in XML, instead of tar+gz+ar or cpio+cruft) that might start to get
you real leverage... but that's not where dpkg's value lies; the
handling of real world cases as encoded in dpkg *and* in the
developers-guide / packaging-manual, the experience represented there,
is the truly significant part -- provably so, if such a conversion can
be executed programmatically...