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

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "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.
To a certain extent, a format has already been established by the
existence of about 100MB or so of "Abrams Files." These use
random-access (fixed record & field lengths) text files...8 fields
with 30/50/10/10/10/10/10/30 field sizes, meaning 160-byte
data records. These CAN (albeit with a bit of work) be imported
into MS Excel and MS Access; if I ever find my "wandered off"
previous hard drive, I can build applications using VB6 to open,
edit or create such files.

Steven C. Barr