::scr Ramblings of a Classic Refugee or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love OS X

[Simon Wistow]

On Tue, Feb 05, 2002 at 03:15:57PM +0000, Matt Webb said:

> A binary file with a separate definition document gets rid of the 
> primary advantage of XML, namely that it can be edited in a standard 
> text editor.

A common trap. You're forgetting that ASCII is a binary format, a
sequence of 7bit numbers which happen to map to lookup table which
describes how to draw that character.


>  In that case, why is a binary file like that better than 
> files being objects? If they had specified accessor methods, they could 
> pretend to be any file type they needed too.

Oooh. Nice idea.