# Red in the real world

DevFeed: [Red in the real world](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/red-in-the-real-world-22388.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.red-lang.org/2024/05/red-in-real-world.html>)

Author: Unknown (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2024-05-27T17:37:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Red](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/red.md>)

Topics: [Red](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/red.md>), [XML](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/xml.md>), [Parser](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/parser.md>), [App](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/app.md>), [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-processing.md>)

Tags: [also](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/also.md>), [code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code.md>), [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-processing.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [features](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/features.md>), [implementation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/implementation.md>), [parsing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/parsing.md>), [xml](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/xml.md>)

## AI overview

The article presents SmartXML, a commercial XML processor written in Red. Its author explains choosing Red to handle real-world XML data and avoid the complexity and breaking changes associated with many modern languages.

## Source excerpt

We're often asked what Red can be used for, or what apps have been written in Red. Red can be used to write almost anything, but the sparse ecosystem and some missing pieces limit certain use cases. It's used a lot for in-house data processing, custom DSLs, simple GUI apps, and more. We also used it to build Redlake's DiaGrammar product. When we heard that someone had written a commercial app in Red, we thought that was great news, and we're here to tell you a little about it. Your first question is likely "What is it?" and the second "Where can I get it?". It's an XML processor, and you can find it here. The video on their site goes into detail about use cases and features, so we won't cover that here. We asked the author to talk about why they wrote SmartXML why those chose Red for the implementation. Here's what they had to say: Once I encountered the need to parse multiple XML files. I always thought that parsing tasks were very simple and that I wouldn't encounter any difficulties because there are things like XPath and XSD that, as I was told, solve all possible problems. However, I quickly realized that this was not the case, and some tools/standards only complicate life and are of little use for real-world usage. Thus, my XML parser project was born, which would allow working with real data rather than synthetic examples where XPath and XSD are truly effective. I chose Red because I was tired of the complexity of 90% of modern languages and the constant breaking changes in many of them. If you were to ask me what language I would choose to start a project with, looking back, I would still choose Red or perhaps try to use Hare (even considering that it's not yet completed) simply because I want to be sure that my solution will work in 10 or even 20 years. Initially, I thought I could finish within half a year, but the project took me many years. Nevertheless, I brought the project to completion. The main idea behind SmartXML was: 1. To make the parsing proces