comp.lang.ruby

Bob Hutchison

11/16/2007 12:44:00 PM

Hi,

On 16-Nov-07, at 5:35 AM, zxem wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I trying to use a Ruby XML binding tool. XAMPLE seems the only
> choice.
>
> The last update for this project http://rubyforge.org/proje...
> is at Nov, 2005. Is this project dead?
>

No it isn't, though I can understand how you might get that
impression :-) I haven't been exactly evangelising it.

BTW, I'm the guy that wrote it.

There are a few people using it, not many.

The documentation is rudimentary, mostly a walk-through tutorial,
though that's been enough to get people going and keep them going --
it would probably help if you knew Ruby reasonably well, especially
what monkey-patching is and how modules can be used to approximate
multiple inheritance. There are a bunch of postings on my weblog (link
below, not the tumblelog) -- there is a category for them. I'm going
to have to re-format them at some point, maybe I should do that today.

I've used it as a replacement for ActiveRecord, in several Rails and
Merb products, and a lot of utilities that I use every day. I'm able
to whip off a fairly complex program in Ruby very quickly. There is
also a Java version that is being used in a number of systems. There's
even a Common Lisp version that I'm overhauling right now.

There is a bit of history to xampl. It started as a Java project for
me to learn how to use a SAX parser, this was a couple of days after
James Clark's parser came out for Java -- maybe 10 years ago. It has
grown through several stages starting with a re-formatter for XML,
through to one of the first XML binding tools. It doesn't take the
same point of view as any of the other binding tools that I know of.
For two *big* reasons: it does not use a schema; it has definite
opinions about how you should be designing your XML. There are big
implications to this, some of which I'm just recently understanding...
maybe a blog post is in order.

If you have any questions about it, I'll be happy to answer them.
Perhaps I should release another version of xampl, it has come along
quite nicely since that release.

Cheers,
Bob

> Or could you suggest another xml binding lib?
>
> Cheers!
>
> Xin Zhao
>

----
Bob Hutchison -- tumblelog at http://www.recurs...
Recursive Design Inc. -- weblog at http://www.recursiv...
http://www.rec... -- works on http://www.raconteur.info/cms-for-static-con...