What problem are you trying to solve? What system(s) do you expect to be communicating with? From reading your post, it sounds like you're looking to provide a solution and are looking for the problem to solve.

My experience has usually been with taking data in formats that I don't choose, parsing them into a format my code understands, doing something with it, then emitting the results back out in formats that I don't choose. The fact that I can do that easily with Perl + CPAN has been a great strength for my employability.

Data is organized in formats for a number of different reasons, and the format is chosen to enable the code using that data to do its job more efficiently. For example, you wouldn't organize something in a Word document if your primary purpose is CRUD. But, the Word format is more useful for WYSIWIG editing than a relational schema. Just a few thoughts ...

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re: Parsing to a format-neutral document model? by dragonchild
in thread Parsing to a format-neutral document model? by xdg

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