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<blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1563810" data-attributes="member: 6271">First off, more power to ya ! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Second, though, XML is not a &quot;language&quot; properly. You can't write a software tool using XML that can add 1+1. It does not &quot;do&quot; anything; it is a &quot;data description language&quot;, not a &quot;data modification language&quot; (to use database terms). I am not as familiar with XSL, so perhaps XSL can show &quot;1+1&quot; as &quot;2&quot;, but that's not the kind of programming that gets you far in building a character tool. The value of XML is its ability to self-describe data. That makes data more portable between systems. PCGen and E-tools, for example, could import each other's saved characters if they were saved in XML. Or, both tools could import the same XML-format list of new spells. However, behind that wondrous ability is a requirement. The parties exchanging the data have to come to some agreements as to what data is exchanged. Yes, XML is self-describing. But it does so using agreed-on terms. Without agreement, there is no &quot;magic&quot; in XML. That was the point of a previous thread, which I have long-since lost track of. Still, I will be curious to see how far you get with it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />And, before I come off sounding too negative, here's a comment I have shared with my friends from time to time: &quot;There is little I have been asked to code in the business world that is more complicated than the stuff I have worked on for gaming.&quot; Writing gaming tools is an excellent way to sharpen programming skills.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Silveras, post: 1563810, member: 6271"] First off, more power to ya ! ;) Second, though, XML is not a "language" properly. You can't write a software tool using XML that can add 1+1. It does not "do" anything; it is a "data description language", not a "data modification language" (to use database terms). I am not as familiar with XSL, so perhaps XSL can show "1+1" as "2", but that's not the kind of programming that gets you far in building a character tool. The value of XML is its ability to self-describe data. That makes data more portable between systems. PCGen and E-tools, for example, could import each other's saved characters if they were saved in XML. Or, both tools could import the same XML-format list of new spells. However, behind that wondrous ability is a requirement. The parties exchanging the data have to come to some agreements as to what data is exchanged. Yes, XML is self-describing. But it does so using agreed-on terms. Without agreement, there is no "magic" in XML. That was the point of a previous thread, which I have long-since lost track of. Still, I will be curious to see how far you get with it. :) And, before I come off sounding too negative, here's a comment I have shared with my friends from time to time: "There is little I have been asked to code in the business world that is more complicated than the stuff I have worked on for gaming." Writing gaming tools is an excellent way to sharpen programming skills. [/QUOTE]

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