Alec Flett wrote:
Bryan Stearns wrote:
I don't see why this is necessary:
- It's another syntax to learn, but who'll learn it?
I guess its just personal preference but for me I don't think this is a
matter of 'learning' the xml - anyone who's done more than 10 minutes
of xml in their life will just 'get it'
Most parcel
developers who are adding item types will mostly just be writing
detail-view trees of blocks; I'm looking forward to rewriting the
detail view's parcel.xml as Python, so the ready examples that
developers will have will be Python. Few non-Python developers will be
customizing other parts of the UI, at least in the next year or so.
I'm not worried about non-python developers. The other point I haven't
mentioned here is day to day maintenance of our own UI. I would argue
that the xml is
going to be WAY easier to maintain than the python declarations. Lets
say we change the file menu around - which is easier, manipulation of
the XML tree or manipulation of the Python? I would argue the xml, by a
long shot, precisely because the UI is hierarchical.
I think non-python developers would be better served by a GUI builder.
As for python developers, I'm not convinced that yet another XML format
is easier to understand or maintain than Python. I suggest that we look
some samples of the two formats to resolve this question.
While I understand the issue of having two ways of doing things, I
personally find the Python way to be pretty klunky for UI. I think its
great for other one-off item instances, don't get me wrong..
-
The syntax isn't better: while it might be familiar to HTML
programmers just
because it's XML, it isn't simpler or terser than the equivalent Python
code given in the example.
I'm not quite sure I understand the simpler/terser argument.
It is actually terser: "brief and to the point" - there is less to
type/read. No need to refer to .update, the current parcel in each
element declaration.
It is actually simpler: there are no redundant attributes like
blockName or parcel name and you don't have to explicitly declare
childrenBlocks.
The similarity to HTML may not buy you much because using CPIA requires
you understand a lot of concepts that are very different from familiar
HTML
(and
what's with the "<ref:
22d5dbf0-0921-11da-ab3d-00054e47c157>"?)
(oops, just posted about this - it was a bad cut-n-paste)
Alec
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