Subject: [VCARDDAV] vCard plain text vs XML

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:39:39 +0100

Hi all,
this is a bit provocative. It's been on my mind for a while now, but never had the courage to ask.
I mean no harm, but I never really understood what's the reason for having plain text syntax for vCard.
Is there a really good reason to maintain the plain text representation any futher?
Just for the sake of history, there is no need. I think most clients/servers can handle XML without any issues.
Wouldn't the XML-based representation be enough?
Thank you.

Best regards: Zoltán Ördögh
E-mail: zoltan dot ordogh at nokia dot com
Phone: +358 50 386 0566

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:54:02 -0400

Zoltan thinks we should switch to XML as the only format for vcards,
and eliminate the historical format.

I agree.

Barry

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:56:28 -0600

> and eliminate the historical format.

+1. From my perspective this would have the added benefit of helping us
deprecate vcard-temp in the XMPP community:

http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0054.html

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Joseph Smarr <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:21:16 -0700

Yeah, I also agree we should try to get most new developers using an
XML/JSON serialization of vCard, since every language has robust parsers for
these formats, whereas parsing and generating vCard's archaic custom format
is definitely a roadblock for lots of people (trust me, we've spent a lot of
time helping other companies we interop with debug their vCard stuff, and
library support in the wild is very uneven).

That being said, I think the existing format is going to be around for a
while, and that's fine, esp. if we have good transformers to/from JSON/XML.
But when you also bring in hCard etc., it becomes clear (at least to some of
us) that the primary contribution of vCard is the namespace and standard
semantics (e.g. this is how you describe a name or phone number) and not the
particular historical serialization they chose over a decade ago...

Thanks, js

2009/3/26 Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>

> _______________________________________________
> VCARDDAV mailing list
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From: Cyrus Daboo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:27:11 -0700

Hi Joseph,

--On March 26, 2009 10:21:16 AM -0700 Joseph Smarr <[email-masked]> wrote:

> XML/JSON serialization of vCard, since every language has robust parsers
> for these formats, whereas parsing and generating vCard's archaic custom
> format is definitely a roadblock for lots of people (trust me, we've
> spent a lot of time helping other companies we interop with debug their
> vCard stuff, and library support in the wild is very uneven).
>
> while, and that's fine, esp. if we have good transformers to/from
> JSON/XML. But when you also bring in hCard etc., it becomes clear (at
> least to some of us) that the primary contribution of vCard is the
> namespace and standard semantics (e.g. this is how you describe a name or
> phone number) and not the particular historical serialization they chose
> over a decade ago...

Right - lets get vcard 4.0 out using the current data format then define 
XML/JSON formats that people can transition to or start using from scratch 
if they need to.

-- 
Cyrus Daboo

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From: Joseph Smarr <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:28:51 -0700

Agreed. And after talking with Simon yesterday, I'm eager and willing to
take a larger roll in that effort! :) Thanks, js

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From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:46:34 +0100

Hi Cyrus,

>Right - lets get vcard 4.0 out using the current data format 
>then define XML/JSON formats that people can transition to or 
>start using from scratch if they need to.

I have to agree that the current charter talks about updating the current data format, and XML representation is only a secondary issue.

I am not proposing re-chartering at this time, but I am worried that the effort we put into the plain text representation might be in vain.

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:49:37 -0400

> I am not proposing re-chartering at this time, but I am worried that the effort we put into the plain text representation might be in vain.

I worry more than that.
I think that if we're doing to deprecate the old format, we'll do best
to do it now.  People will upgrade to this version of VCard and switch
to XML at the same time.  If we still have the antique format, they'll
move that way, and it will take a long longer to switch to XML.

A LOT longer.

Barry

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From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:45:30 -0700

>> and eliminate the historical format.

- as an individual, I agree.
- as co-chair, this is not in our charter. We would need to rediscuss
the charter to make that statement/work.

Marc.

-- 
=========
IPv6 book: Migrating to IPv6, Wiley. http://www.ipv6book.ca
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From: Zahhar Kirillov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:21:22 +0200

Hi, All!

Despite I am not a member of your team (as I wrote last time, I am a
software developer and postgraduate student who researches an
organization electronic business card), let me introduce my humble
opinion.

Actually, I was surprised that vCard 4.0 draft is still in plain text,
not XML. I can't see any reason for that: continuing with plain text
is a backward step in developing vCard standard. Today, when internet
is slightly moving towards Semantic Web, any standard will need first
of all XML-representation and then RDF scheme.

What a pros for continuing with plain text?
+ relatively compact format (cons: who really needs it today? Even
with IrDA a jundreds of vCards can be transmitted within a few
seconds)
+ well-understandable by humans (cons: who really needs it today?
IT-staff understands XML also and ordinar people have no any interest
against vCard content)
+ compatible with lots of "generic" software on old devices (cons:
enthusiasts will definitely make a converter to plain text for
compatibility with extracting new data types)

What are the pros for XML?
- XML is one of most developed world standards with a huge community.
This community should not learn vCard to adopt it, if vCard structure
is XMLized. As a result, community will get a better and up-to-date
standard with possible longer lifetime and wider spread, that can be
easily broadened and adopted by most of specialists.
-Now vCard is "one of a kind" standard and yet-another-translator is
needed to integrate vCard support into most of applications. There is
no proper vCard support for a lot of frameworks, no syntax
highlighting. XML has all of this.
- There is a hCard microformat with growing community and developed
infrastructure (native support in browsers, browser plugins, etc). A
lot of peaple think hCard is "the real strandard" and knwo nothing
about any other vCard plain text standard (and don't want to know).
- XML can be referred as DOM and processed by Javascript, Lua and
other scripting languages without any intermediate tiers.
- this list can be continued.

So, I would choose XML.

Regards,

Zahhar Kirillov

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:47:44 -0400

> the charter to make that statement/work.

Yes, I *am* suggesting that we have a charter discussion and consider
rechartering to remove the obsolete format.

We've already made changes that are not backward compatible, so
changes will be necessary in order to support the new VCards.  Let's
use that as an opportunity to make the XML conversion, and let
implementors get rid of the specialized VCard parsers that can't parse
anything else.

Barry

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From: Helge Hess <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:59:33 +0100

> What a pros for continuing with plain text?

For me its just one, important, thing: backwards compatibility.  
Adopting existing vCard software for 4.0 changes is much easier than  
adding XML support (consider adding a 20K expat parser on the  
addressbook in your watch ...). There is a huge amount of deployed  
vCard software which can't be trivially rewritten for XML.

+: even new vCard 4 software most likely will need to deal with  
previous vCard versions. Its required to have the 'plain text' parser  
anyways.

+: the 'issues' with versit plain text formats are less the syntax but  
in the semantics. And that won't change just by adding XML.

Never change a running system bla bla ;-)

Anyways I absolutely agree that we need XML formats for vCard and  
iCal, but thats a different effort IMHO. vcard-xml and icalendar-xml,  
we need such working groups which come up with standardized RFCs.

Greets,
   Helge

PS: Dear lazyweb, I would love to see a document which outlines the  
exact differences between vCard 3 and 4 for implementors ;-)
-- 
Helge Hess
http://zideone.com/

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:32:35 -0700

Cyrus Daboo wrote:

> Right - lets get vcard 4.0 out using the current data format then 
> define XML/JSON formats that people can transition to or start using 
> from scratch if they need to.

One thing the WG should consider is what is the difference between 3.0 
and 4.0. If there are many minor or major incompatible syntactic 
changes, then it might be easier for implementations to migrate to XML 
at the same time as migrating to 4.0. Just my 2p.

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From: Simon Perreault <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:51:38 -0700

> exact differences between vCard 3 and 4 for implementors ;-)

Your wish is granted!

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-06#appendix-A

Note that some of this is wrong and will be fixed before the final version.

P.S. My vCard doesn't contain NICKNAME:lazyweb... ;)

Simon
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