Has anyone noticed that the ODMG now have an XML version of their object
interchange format (OIF, now OIFML).  It's a bit bletcherous.  Why write

<odmg_object oid="Sally">
 <class>Person</class>
 <contents>
  <attribute name="Name">
   <value>
    <string val="Sally"/>
   </value>
  </attribute>
  <attribute name="Age">
   <value>
    <unsignedshort val="11"/>
   </value>
  </attribute>
 </contents>
</odmg_object>

when you could just write

<simple-object class="Person" oid="Sally">
 <attribute name="Name" type="string" value="Sally"/>
 <attribute name="Age" type="ushort" value="11"/>
</simple-object>

or even

<object class="Person" oid="Sally">
 <s name="Name>Sally</s>
 <u2 name="Age">11</u2>
</object>

I sometimes think that the people who design interchange formats don't
think about interchange enough...  Or formats.

Just as a matter of curiosity, is there an OIFML reader/writer for Squeak?
Would anyone like one?