Benefit: there would be a single

preferences file format shared among all platforms.

Cost:

* currently the only platform that uses xml for

preferences is OSX, and Pd relies on its proprietary,

non-portable tool in order to read and save this file.

So it would be necessary to write an XML parser for

reading and writing in Pd, or bring in an XML library

as a dependency.

* can't leverage any of Pd's current parsers or

use them as a guide.  For example, the Pd

message parser splits tokens on spaces-- the

XML preferences file below doesn't fit that

pattern-- the pd parser would interpret that first

line as a single symbol atom.

* the linux preferences file has long-standing code

in Pd for reading/writing preference files.  That would 

be thrown out to create a newer one that

is more difficult to implement.

* without nested tags we lose most of

the power that XML would have provided.  (For example,

nested tags to make the values in "fontmetrics" self

documenting.)

What are the practical problems with using the current

format for the Pd preferences file under Linux?

-Jonathan

<rate>44100</rate>