Defining an XML format for shooting match results

How to Help

Most shooters are familiar with only a few shooting disciplines. However, this format is meant to be a standard across ALL disciplines for multiple governing bodies in multiple countries. To accomplish this goal, it will take a group of people with knowledge of software development and expertise in their own shooting disciplines.

Purpose

XML is an industry standard for encoding documents electronically. It is designed and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It's simplicity, generality, and usability lend itself to many uses. Rather then trying to develop a "standard" from scratch, it made sense to begin with a well-accepted open-source (non-proprietary) format. Although XML itself is very general, it can be "customized" for specific applications. A Document Type Definition (DTD) can be used for this customization.

Currently, there are many (I would guess thousands) of different software applications being used to generate shooting match results. Many are simply hand-entered spreadsheets with formulas performing some basic calculations. Others are slightly more complex spreadsheets with macros performing more complex functions. The most complex are probably the software that interfaces with the electronic targets. All of these applications produce the results in their own format. For the human mind, it is easy to read these different results and comprehend them. For a computer, without a common format, it is impossible.

Keep in mind now, this DTD defines the format for the electronic data containing match results. It does not define the format for how a human would view the results.

This could be used a few ways, all depending upon the development of other software applications which subscribe to this standard. Imagine the following:

  1. When running a match, some software application can assist in the score-keeping and when done produce results. (Yes, I know this is fairly common right now.) However, when complete, the match results can be e-mailed, not only as a PDF, Word, or Excel file, but also as an XML file following this standard.
  2. Once the competitors receive their results as an XML file they could have their choice of software applications to view the match results. (Obviously, at the beginning, a simple viewer would need to be made available. Later, other people could utilize the DTD standard to write their own viewers and distribute them as they prefer. The better ones would become more popular, and the less popular ones would die-out.)
  3. The governing body (NRA, USAShooting, CMP, IPSC, SASS, etc.) can receive the e-mailed XML results in this standard format. (Pending, of course, their acceptance of the standard and modifying their score-keeping software to be capable of reading these files. A labor saving effort in the long run.)
  4. Shooters can import the XML file into some type of tracking and performance software to record and analyze their progress. For the more serious shooters, this could be some type of suppliment to their "Shooter's Diary". For the less serious, it may just be a simple tracking program.
  5. Coaches could import the XML files into a similar tracking and performance application to analyze the progress of their shooters.
  6. The XML files could be uploaded to different regional web forums. Once the standard gains acceptance, applications could be written for the web to store and display the results.

Ultimately, I would like this DTD (or a subsequent version of it) to become the "industry standard" for shooting match results.

THIS is NOT a single software solution, but a standard to allow a multitude of different solutions to all share the same data.