On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 1:41 PM, J.D. Falk <jdfalk-lists@cybernothing.org> wrote:
Some types of conversations simply don't take well to automation.
However, automatically indexing/archiving such conversations for future reference can be useful (and can assist participants to the conversation in looking up past similar conversations), and it is easier to archive and maintain accurate auditing of structured language than to implement natural language parsers. That said, XML makes a terrible data interchange format for communications where humans are supposed to understand the message, using standard software (such as a legacy e-mail client). YAML, or similar would be a more appropriate choice, and since it can be presented as plain text, many humans can understand the output simply by looking at it. -- -J