CSVs Are Kinda Bad. DSVs Are Kinda Good • Hacker News Board

Re: CSVs Are Kinda Bad. DSVs Are Kinda Good

#131

Post by teddyh » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 1:31 PM UTC

usrbinbash wrote: post #130

teddyh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the qualifier: “not an Internet standard” (my emphasis).

And again: None of that matters. I am not talking about formalities here, I am talking about technical realities. Whether it is formally called a standard or no doesn't change the fact that this is the document everyone points at when determining what CSV is and is supposed to look like. So it is de-facto a standard. Call it a "quasi standard" if that makes you happy.

Oh no; I agree with you completely. I just wanted to point out that the document does not disclaim being a “standard”, is just says that it is not an “Internet standard”.

Re: CSVs Are Kinda Bad. DSVs Are Kinda Good

#132

Post by jhbadger » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 2:48 PM UTC

usrbinbash wrote: post #70

dghf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4180.txt is very clear about what CSV files are supposed to look like Mm, not really. By its own admission, it is descriptive, not prescriptive : > This section documents the format that seems to be followed by most implementations And it came out in 2005, by which date CSVs had already been in use for some twenty or thirty years.

It doesn't matter when it came out, it doesn't matter that it it descriptive. It is the standard, period. Yes, CSV is much, much older. In fact it predates personal computers. And it went through changes. Again: None of that matters. We have a standard, we should use the standard, and systems should demand the standard. Standards are meant to ensure minimal-friction interoperability. If systems don't enforce standard…

Yes, but you could argue that web browsers shouldn't accept broken HTML either. But they do, and that's why there are so much broken HTML out there in the wild. Same with broken CSV -- basically people's measure is "if Excel can read it correctly, it's fine" even if not every CSV library in every programming language can.

Re: CSVs Are Kinda Bad. DSVs Are Kinda Good

#133

Post by usrbinbash » Sun, Aug 18, 2024, 8:59 AM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #131

usrbinbash wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again: None of that matters. I am not talking about formalities here, I am talking about technical realities. Whether it is formally called a standard or no doesn't change the fact that this is the document everyone points at when determining what CSV is and is supposed to look like. So it is de-facto a standard. Call it a "quasi standard" if that makes you happy.

Oh no; I agree with you completely. I just wanted to point out that the document does not disclaim being a “standard”, is just says that it is not an “Internet standard”.

My mistake, in that case, thank you :-)