Need help arguing *against* XML for localization storage.
-
The job I'm working on wants to use XML for storing strings in the various languages we plan to support. We're choosing xml for a variety of reasons: Not tied to a specific platform (.resx etc) Doesn't require application recompilation on editing/adding strings Doesn't require recompilation on adding new languages. Human readability. Overall, I agree with using XML, but my boss has tasked me with finding out the reasons why *not* to use it. To play the Devil's Advocate so to speak. While I can think up a few reasons, I'm coming short on anything really convincing, which I'm worried is due to my bias of actually wanting to use it. Anyone have some solid reasons not to use XML for this type of data storage? I have: Possible slower load time at initial startup, or at string access. Possible memory overhead depending on schema, and how we handle language data loading. Resource size: xml contains a lot of overhead in the markup language (this is a concern for us)
-
The job I'm working on wants to use XML for storing strings in the various languages we plan to support. We're choosing xml for a variety of reasons: Not tied to a specific platform (.resx etc) Doesn't require application recompilation on editing/adding strings Doesn't require recompilation on adding new languages. Human readability. Overall, I agree with using XML, but my boss has tasked me with finding out the reasons why *not* to use it. To play the Devil's Advocate so to speak. While I can think up a few reasons, I'm coming short on anything really convincing, which I'm worried is due to my bias of actually wanting to use it. Anyone have some solid reasons not to use XML for this type of data storage? I have: Possible slower load time at initial startup, or at string access. Possible memory overhead depending on schema, and how we handle language data loading. Resource size: xml contains a lot of overhead in the markup language (this is a concern for us)
You've probably hit most of the reasons you might not want to use XML. Couple of other reasons to use XML - a) not having to write your own parsing code and b) XML files explicitly define the encoding they use. This design decision doesn't seem to be so important that you want to take too much effort over it. Using XML's a no-brainer, really, IMO.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p