Re: XML format for statistical data and analysis?

beliavsky@xxxxxxx wrote:

I, too, like CSV. I like tab-separated even better, but then again I
rarely rarely use Fortran.

>
> I know little about XML, but in the recent book "Data Crunching"
> (2005), Greg Wilson writes that
>
> "Unless you've been living under a rock for the last decade, you'll
> know that flat text is passe.

But extraordinarily useful.

> These days, almost everything is
> represented using some kind of markup: HTML for web pages and its
> cousing XML for spreadsheets, web server configuration files, ... ."

And working with these formats is like beating yourself over the head with
a rock. I'd rather live under one than beat myself over the head with one.

When upper manglement insists on using XML because it is nice and
buzzwordy, my first impulse is to comply by making a single-element XML
file which just contains the CSV string stuffed into a CDATA section.

Xho

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