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Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 01:26:56 -0500
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From: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
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	John Doty on Wed, 23 Dec 2015 14:51:26 -0700)
Subject: Re: [geda-user] A fileformat library
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> I think that having a file format that enables simple means to
> achieve simple (but specialized) ends is essential to a good
> toolkit.

Any SQL implementation refutes that.  Nobody touches the SQL data file
itself, they all go through a SQL interpreter that accesses the data
on their behalf.  Specialized ends are implemented on top of this
interpreter.

Granted, this means we'd need a well-defined way to do pretty much
anything through whatever means we provide, but saying "access to the
file is required" is just plain wrong.  "Access to the data" is a more
appropriate requirement, but making the data file tweakable is a weak
solution to that - no controls, no validation, etc.