Re: XML is boring (was Re: coming clean with the SGML crowd)

Andy Dent (dent@highway1.com.au)
Fri, 11 Sep 1998 18:29:08 +0800


At 8:40 AM +0800 11/9/98, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> - an XML spreadsheet?
our initial rewrite of our report writer to use XML is close to the above,
but without the calculation logic :-). As the report writer preview window
allows editing of content in the cells, it effectively becomes a
spreadsheet editor. We are a LOOONNNGGG way from a full spreadsheet and
frankly am not interested in pursuing this direction without a client
driving it. Without disclosing too much I can say that one of our clients
will be using our toolkit to create their own spreadsheet-like behaviours
but it is very early days for their use.

However, I'm always open to collaboration - the dBase and graphing engines
in OOFILE were developed on a royalty basis by a local developer, and I'd
love the chance to drop in a calculation engine. OOFILE is a commercial
(c++) developer tool, but I'd be willing to release a free Mac/Win compiled
spreadsheet product particularly if it helped boost the XML community.

>Where are the excited XML hackers?
Not sure if I count on any of 3 bases, I'm as much baffled as excited,
can't claim to be an XML person until we've actually shipped the betas in a
few weeks and I'm not really a hacker any more as I'm trying very hard to
lead-by-engineering-example :-)

Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia
OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows
PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability
http://www.highway1.com.au/adsoftware/crossplatform.html