Re: [ARSCLIST] My "CD-based" gripe--was: ARSC Awards -- Award criteria (was: Awards 2009 - Call for Nominations)

[Daniel Epstein <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Seems to me the sort of thing that an XML-based record interchange  
format would be good at. Comma separated tables work well until the  
first time someone changes the table schema by adding a new data  
field. With a series of commonly tagged records, additional fields  
don't impact backward compatibility. Then, it would be relatively  
simple to develop Javascript/PHP scripts for basic reading and HTML  
formatted display of the data (say for a built-in reader on a CD/DVD  
distribution) without any more specialized or license restricted  
software. At the same time, such a fomat would also facilitate more  
advanced manipulation or the importation of data into other databases.  
Grep, awk, and perl would, of course, still be options for those of us  
who want it.

The first step here then is agreeing on a format and base set of  
attributes.

Daniel G. Epstein (mobile)

On Nov 23, 2008, at 23:11, David Breneman <david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx>  
wrote:

> --- On Sun, 11/23/08, Steven C. Barr <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > IF digital "publication" was in the form of
> > database file(s), the data
> > contained within could be easily and quickly searched
> > and/or re-sorted by the users!
>
>
> OK, which databse should we standardize on? Oracle? MySQL?
> Something in between?
>
> Now, if we're talking about providing data in a .csv file that
> can be imported into any database, or even a spreadsheet, or
> even better, accessed via grep, then that's something useful.