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Message: <blockquote data-quote="towngen" data-source="post: 418255" data-attributes="member: 1528">Well, I've looked into XML a little more and it does seem like I don't have to worry about parsing the XML text.  I can just get an activeX control to do it for me.  I assume that a similiar prepackaged block of code exists for java as well.  So VB, VC++, and Java as have relatively easy access to XML parsers.It seems to me that we should put a proprietary wrapper around the XML data that would be unique to our imprelmentation of it.  That way, only someone who has written a program to the RPG-API can even get their XML data to the parser.  That would be an extra level of security.XML is starting to make me kinda nervous though.  Can a tag be imbedded in XML that causes the parser to run some code?  If so, then a malacious person could possibly get into your computer via an imbedded XML tag (something like putting a VBscript into an HTML email which is run automatically by Outlook to spread a virus).  So if we are going to use off the shelf parsers for the XML stream, we need to be CERTAIN that things don't get out of hand.  Does anyone here know about this?Does anyone know enough XML to create the functional equivalents of those couple functions I wrote in a previous post in XML?The reason to use TCP/IP comes down to platform independence.  Is there any other way to create a platform independent method of interapplication communication?  Sure we could use the file system.  Everything understands ASCII text files.  But that is order's of magnitude slower than a internal loopback IP connection.  So people are already complaining about Java's relative slowness.  What if 1 java application is talking to another through the file system?  Think about compounding time delay effects when you consider the order of a single string getting transfered: open, write, close, flush file IO buffers, wait for receiving program to notice a new file exists in the common directory, open, read, close.  That is in comparison to a TCP/IP triggered event in the receiving program that never had to wait for a physical disk drive to actually do anything.The other issue with the file system is that it prevents distributing computing unless you want to deal with REALLY slow connections and all the security headaches of opening your file system to the whole world.  Programming a connection with winsock in windows is very simple to do, both in VB and VC++.  Considering how much web stuff has been written in Java, I can't imagine talking to an IP port is any kind of issue at all in Java.Klintus, I'm not really sure what you are suggesting with the libraries thing.  Do you mean distribute source code?  I doubt any commerical applications would ever distribute their source code.  I don't plan to distribute the source to my town generator.  It's written in VB.  The source wouldn't do anyone any good on a Mac or a Linux box anyway.  Anything that involves distributing source code isn't going to work.The issue of skirting license agreements with distributed computing is exactly one of the reasons I like it so much.  I can write my program without including any OGC in it, but still have access to that material by using someone else's program that does use OGC material.  Plus, if there are only certain things that can be done with OGC material in a program, if they expose the results of their program to others, then the programs that don't have any OGC in them, but merely import a finished character for example, can do anything they feel like with it.  After all, how can they be bound to the OGL, if their program contains exactly ZERO OGC?Have you ever noticed that when someone gets stomped on for a copyright violation the demand is always, "stop distributing that program".  This is exactly complying with that.  You aren't distributing the program.  You are distributing the results of the program.  So does it constitute a copyright violation?  Can I legally create a character with paper and pen and the books and mail it to my friend?  If so, why can't I automate the process?Anyway, back to the API discussion, how would a person make a SOAP function call in VB?  Is there a SOAP activeX control, or is it a dll call?  Where can I get this functionality and add it into my VB program?  What about VC++.  If it's only a Java library for XML then it doesn't do us any good.  Is it usable on a Mac?  What about Linux?  What if I wanted to write a Win32 console application?</blockquote>

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