"XML Parsing with Python"--Derek Willis
Let’s face it, relational database types don’t like XML files. They’re structured, sure, but not in quite the way we’re used to. So pulling them apart is a chore for which there are many tools but few that seem to fit easily into the CAR Computer-Assisted Reporting] mindset. Enter [Python and the Amara toolkit. Amara builds on 4Suite, which processes XML and RDF, and it works in a very Pythonic way by essentially turning XML data into Python objects. If I have to parse XML into a relational database, Amara is my tool of choice.
One thing that I've especially appreciated about feedback on Amara is the way users cite it as an example of the essential power of Python, and why it is a draw from even outside of Python. This has always been my aim, more conventionally with 4Suite, and more subversively with Amara. When you compare the weary nature of, say Java XML data bindings, Amara is a nice advertisement for Python's dynamicism.
Later on Willis concludes:
CAR folks can think of [XML as processed through Amara] as calling field names, and instead of printing out elements you can insert them into a database. Nice and easy - the way everybody says XML should be.
And just the way I intended. Nice.