On Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:24:17 +1100, Steve Shattuck Steve.Shattuck@CSIRO.AU wrote:

The fundamental problem I see is making SDD truly extensible and yet generic at the same time. The big problem with the DELTA standard is that every time Mike needed new DELTA program functionality he extended the DELTA standard by adding new directives. This meant that if you wanted to support the DELTA standard you needed to follow Mike's lead. It's hardly a "standard" if it's being pushed by one group.

Hi there,

I'm new to this group and was envolved with DELTA writing my TAXASOFT programs years ago. I agree that there was some mixture between the DELTA standard and special needs (directives) for the programs using it, which was a wrong choice (discussed these polutions with Mike years ago, to keep the chars, items and specs file free from this).

The power of DELTA is its simple flat format and I agree that the new format must be as simple and transparant as possible.

I do not know in what stage this SDD devellopment is, but I'm highly interested in a DELTA like format that is XML based (done a lot with XML lately) to provide hirarchical features in the items part.

Eric Gouda