At 08:25 2/1/01 -0500, Joshua Davis wrote: > >In the interests of education... Maybe there is some resource that concisely >describes why the declarative approach can be better in some cases (ANT in >particular)? Maybe JDD can add a link to it in his ANT 2.0 proposal?
I have never actually seen it in writing ... sorry. If you are really interested in it then you may want to ask on some of the xpath lists or else on xml-database lists. Most DB engineers see xpath as a revert into darkages (ie procedural data-access) compared to SQL (ie a declarative data-access). They would be more likely to have reference material. From what I rmember from language classes basically the advantages are * declarative tends not to break each iteration even if underlying procedures for implementing task change * declarative easier to deal with for non-programmers * declarative easier for data description rather than process description etc. These guidelines break down in a few places (ie lisp) but generally hold. Cheers, Pete *-----------------------------------------------------* | "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind, | | and proving that there is no need to do so - almost | | everyone gets busy on the proof." | | - John Kenneth Galbraith | *-----------------------------------------------------*
