Post FeedThe golden rules for XML usage
(April 21, 2006)
A few minutes ago, a friend came up with the idea of a XML-based checksumming tool. This is another great example of immense over-engineering in the XML world. I won’t go into detail about when to use XML and when not – I just want to establish some basic rules:
- If you come up with a XML-based solution for your problem, think again.
- If, while thinking it over thoroughly, you didn’t find a better solution, ask other people.
- If these people also don’t find a better solution, ask people who don’t even know XML how they would solve the problem.
- If no one came up with a satisfactory solution that didn’t involve XML, use XML.
Why don’t you exchange 4. with "If no one came up with a satisfactory solution that didn’t involve XML – it would perhaps be the best choice for humanity not to solve the problem after all…"
In fact, checksumming can be quite a pain in the you-know-where, for example Amazon wrongly checksums my bank account number, even though there is no checksumming involved in that number at all…