[CQ-Contest] A Plea to Cabrillo Contet Robot Writers

[VE5ZX]

> you understand how to use it - that may not be such a big deal.  Not all
> languages have a parser.

It really isn't that difficult to use any language to parse a simple XML 
file sequentially such as the one that would be needed for most contest 
logs. I parse massive XML data files from my research web crawler 
sequentially using Perl with no problems. OTOH hand if you want to use a DOM 
or other parser the learn curve can be quite steep.

XML greatest advantage is that when variations such as the problem Sam 
pointed out with the RAC and Cabrillo can be handled in an orderly and 
complete manner. Furthermore, those who wish to build data extensions to log 
data can do so without interfering with the core requirements of contest 
submission.

Additional verbage in the form of tags and structure is small price to pay 
for uniformity and flexibility.

Syl

Sylvan Katz - VE5ZX
Saskatoon, SK