I hate XML :-) It's a good thing really, but still I hate it. Why? Because it started of as a thingy to be used between interoperable systems (where it was needed) and ended up as a glorified INI file. Yeah I know, INI files suck big time and you are a cool developer always using the latest and greatest, so for these 5 settings your app uses you have to use XML, now don't you?
XMLishness is a dangerous sickness. Those who have it tend to think in terms of XML for almost everything. "Why should we use these dreadful .RC files for resources, let's do an XML based solution" is a typical example of the sick person's thinking. Instead of worrying how they will do their actual job (deliver a solution to the customer) they worry if there is anything else that can be XMLized.
Needless to say, to parse an XML file with 5 settings you need an XML parser, which is thousands of lines of code someone else wrote for you, while to parse a text or binary file with 5 settings you need 5 lines of your own code. But this is a minor detail for lots of people. They prefer to forget that "XML format" actually means "I need an XML parser to read it".
This is why for example the people who designed GenICam decided to describe the camera capabilities using an XML file. And that is an XML file stored into the camera and sent to the software that controls it. So that software cannot possibly run in kernel mode because most people don't have a kernel mode XML parser and of course kernel mode is for doing serious work like touching the hardware or the operating system structures, not parsing stupid setting files.
Here is what happened to someone that in my opinion incorrectly used XML for something that could have been done much more easily, and ended up parsing XML in kernel mode... The computer may restart... 真的嗎？
Have fun!
Dimitrios Staikos
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