[cm3]

Exactly. When you want to exchange data, it's much preferable to have typed/tagged representations. If not that, then one should strive to at least avoid regex "parsing" everything. The exception is that plumbing is okay because it integrates output from all kinds of programs that already exist, but if you have control, it's a lot better to have short prefixes like, say, bug:BUG123, git:COMMITID, pkg:DISTROPACKAGE, etc. But these short prefixes miss namespacing. Anyway, this is only true for acme and friends and in Oberon elements are rich and not plain text.