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BeerXML Schema Development

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BeerSmith:
Several people expressed an interest in schema development.

This discussion group is a good location to share your schema efforts and files.

Cheers!
Brad Smith
http://www.beersmith.com

sosman:
I fall into the "we need a schema" for a real xml standard.  I believe the schema is the standard.

A key dilema I see are the competing needs of "backwards compatibility" vs a "clean break" - that is, design a fresh xml standard without being tied down by existing software.  Unless some sort of consensus can be reached, the time will come where there are two (or more) "standards".

Just for transparency - I am the author of Brewsta (http://sourceforge.net/projects/brewsta/) and compatibility with BeerXML has not been a priority with me after my initial experience with "the standard".  I currently store recipes in a binary format and only produce XML for viewing in a browser (http://brewiki.org/brewsta/recipes/).  If there were a generic, clean standard, I would have no hesitation in adopting it.

When I first jumped on BeerXML I posted some detailed issues that in my opinion were knobbling the effort.  I don't know if there is an archive somewhere because I'm not sure I still have the email.  I also put together a prototypical XML schema which tried (as best as I could) to reflect the existing hops part of BeerXML (see attached).  If I were to design this from scratch I would do it quite differently.  Among other things I would:

* Make much more use of attributes (vs elements).
* Remove items such as "display units".
* I have a personal dislike of all uppercaps but could overcome that if it helped with backwards compatibility.
cheers

Brandybuck:
If we're going to make a break with an old "standard", then it's better to do it earlier than later.

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