A few corrections (and more "useless thoughts") to my post:

---I wrote:
[SNIP]
> 4. XML is very nice. I work with it in Java and we are using it right
> now both as a more robust way of representing objects in files than
> serialization.

"Both" implies that I forgot to add "...and as a base for the
fileformats of the system we are building."

[SNIP]
> But serialization of objects between languages is hard. HARD on the
> brink of impossibility I would presume. OMG/CORBA are trying aren't
> they? I say good luck. :-)

Well, impossible is a strong word. I meant "impossible" in the sense
that it also would be useful.

After giving this a teeny more thought I would think that serializing
objects between languages (given that a class exists on both sides
written in each language of course) is a rather "useless" thing to be
able to do! :-)

What do I mean by that? Well, if we still have to write the classes in
each language - then it suddenly seems to be more of a "file format"
problem than a "serialization" problem. If we want to be able to
transfer state between programming languages XML is perfect - but the
beauty appears when you define a nice grammar for the state that you
want to be able to transfer so that the XML file is more of a
declarative (and readable) description of an objects state rather than
a XML-ified snapshot of the object in memory.

In this way a builder on each side of the language barrier can decide
how it want to represent the state as objects in the two different
languages.

Well, enough babbling, G–ran

===
G–ran Hultgren, gohu at rocketmail.com, icq#:6136722
GSM: +46 709 472152, http://195.22.65.4
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you. Then you win." -- Gandhi
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