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At Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:03:09 -0700, Jason Thorpe wrote:
Subject: Re: proplib changes
>=20
> On Jun 26, 2007, at 3:17 AM, Trevor Talbot wrote:
> >=20
> > Plists are XML, so yes -- XML comments.  It appears SCN supports
> > comments too, but proplib doesn't.  I don't think it necessarily
> > should, but you can't write an effective converter without dealing
> > with this issue somehow.  Losing user-defined information in a
> > for-humans format is not cool.
>=20
> comments are just that -- comments.  They are semantically =20
> meaningless, and so, while the parser can handle normal XML comments, =20
> the comments do not appear in the resulting dictionary.  Since they're =20
> not in the dictionary, when the dictionary is once again externalized, =20
> there obviously won't be any comments.

Yes, but if you're translating a "document" between different languages
then the comments MUST be preserved, and in the appropriate context.
They might not be part of the data used by the machinery, but they are a
critical part of the data used by the human.

> Not that this matters much -- generally, the keys used in a dictionary =20
> should be chosen so as to be descriptive, and nothing is a substitute =20
> for good documentation on the schema used by any given application.

I can't believe you said any of that!

The comments aren't usually/only going to be there to describe the
option or its possible values or such -- they're going to be there to
tell the next guy who edits the file why the particular setting has been
chosen on the particular system, and what the consequences might be of
changing it for that particular system.

Comments MUST be supported both in any plist specific management tool
(your "pedit") and in any tools intended to translate between various
formats.

--=20
						Greg A. Woods

H:+1 416 218-0098 W:+1 416 489-5852 x122 VE3TCP RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>       Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>

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