Export formats - JSON

[Luc Le Blanc]

A previous effort at creating such a a standard extensible format was CaveXML.

http://www.psc-cavers.org/xml/

But somehow it didn't pick up. Why?

Binary data may be evil, but editor-less programs using text-based
data encourage users to edit their data by hand with
validation-lacking basic tools :(

2016-06-29 18:19 GMT-04:00 Philip Balister <philip at balister.org>:
> Yeah top posting is evil ...
>
> So I think we are missing the underlying reason Philip is interested in
> a standard format for storing survey data.
>
> Whenever someone comes along and says "I can make a better cave survey
> program", they start by reinventing wheels. Now, survex has pretty much
> solved the data processing problem and is used by cavewhere and therion.
> (on my wishlist, have subsurface export an API so people do not take the
> code and hack at it)
>
> But we still have the problems of data from things like smaps, compass,
> walls etc. (I'm assuming everyone on this list understands the evils of
> binary only programs)
>
> What need is to start moving to a standard extensible format that is
> easily usable without everyone having to write yet another parser for
> processing cave data. If we can get this format in place and hopefully
> adopted, people can process data with the program that makes them happy,
> without annoying other people who like other programs.
>
> Ideally, someone would write something translate svx files into metacave
> for people that like the survex format. Possibly even build this into
> survex, since it already knows how to parse svx, and then use a library
> to write out the data as metacave.
>
> Now that we have a standard format to store data in, people interested
> in processing it do not need to sit down and come up with a storage
> format when then have some crazy idea to do with cave data. The end goal
> is get more people interested in processing cave data, using a standard
> format so we can run our data sets easily with multiple programs. The
> more people we can interest in working software, no mater what your
> personal favourite package the healthier the cave survey software ecosystem.
>
> Philip
>
> On 06/24/2016 05:13 AM, Andy Waddington (Cave Surveying mailbox) wrote:
>> Sometime before sending, Philip Schuchardt typed (and on Thursday 2016-06-23 at 13:40:26 sent):
>>
>>>  Do you ever modify your KML or SVG files by hand? They're both plain
>>> text XML documents.
>>
>> Well, I modify .gpx files in a text editor (without syntax highlighting)
>> as a matter of routine because it is plain text xml and editing it is dead
>> easy. I have also been known to edit those same tracklogs in a mapping
>> application with a graphical interface. In some respects it is more
>> intuitive, but typically more time-consuming than the hand-editing.
>> Often I will pick points in the graphical application to identify which
>> bits of the xml to hack in the text editor which is often the most
>> efficient way to accomplish my goals.
>>
>> The point is that all these ways are available to me because xml, at
>> least as used in .gpx files, is sufficiently well structured and readable
>> that it is perfectly possible to edit in plain text. Not everyone will
>> want to, but the aim should be to make it possible to do so, since
>> then you can fix niggly little errors or add experimental features
>> without needing full support from your GUI application.
>>
>> It's a whole lot easier than editing low-level binary drawing
>> files with a hex editor :-) And xml is a lot easier to hack than
>> (in another application entirely) GEDCOM, which is a structured
>> file format which looks easy to edit in plain text, but which is
>> incredibly error-prone owing to the cross-references to lines
>> very far away in the file.
>>
>> So yes, xml is desirable fr its ease of editing (and there are
>> indeed editors designed to edit it and maintaining its
>> structural integrity - a bit more to learn but probably easier
>> than plain text if you do a lot of it).
>>
>> And for those document formats Martin mentions like TeX,
>> plain text is great. I've always preferred What You See Is A
>> Description Of What You Will Eventually Get editors to the
>> newer WYSIWYG ones. It is so much easier to write little
>> scripts to make changes. Even direct hacking of PostScript
>> is easier than using some of the bloated desktop DTP
>> files...
>>
>> Andy
>>
>>
>
> --
> Survex http://lists.survex.com/mailman/listinfo/survex



-- 
Luc Le Blanc
http://www.speleo.qc.ca/Auriga