I don't think we are not talking about shortcomings of XML. I think we are talking about *misuses* of XML. XML was never intended to be a scripting language (ant)
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Alexey <[email protected]> wrote: > XML is not a programming language. It's a platform for flexible AST > development. It's meant to be tools-driven. Perhaps the tool support > on the authoring side has not been realized as well as it should have > in terms of XML build and config files. But certainly we get to enjoy > pretty good tool support at runtime (validation, debugging). XML is > easy to program for, which also means that if you're missing a > specific XML tool feature, 9 times out of 10, it's within an average > developer's grasp to bridge that gap themselves. > > If you don't like the way Ant or Maven files are written, that's > generally a shortcoming of the actual programming language that's been > created using XML underpinnings, rather than XML itself. > > On Mar 8, 3:19 am, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Okay, XML is painful to read and not Turing complete, which is a bit > > > annoying. > > > > Some usage of XML just seems to model an AST and as such, are indeed > > Turing complete. The Ujac reporting/templating library comes to mind: > http://ujac.sourceforge.net/UJAC/docs/api/org/ujac/util/template/pack... > > > > > But the tools are really top notch and completely pervasive, even if > you're > > > not using an IDE. I'm not even talking about catching trivial problems > like > > > forgetting to close a bracket but immediately catching bad enum values > > > thanks to a DTD or an XSD. > > > > Hmm from experience with JSF/XML, it's all too easy to adhere to > > syntax (XSD schema) yet put gibberish together - which you will only > > learn at runtime as the XML is expanded to instances of native strong > > types. > > > > > I was editing a plugin.xml file earlier today, and as soon as I made a > > > mistake or a typo, my editor and outline views light up with squiggly > red > > > lines. > > > > Have you done Spring XML configuration? That has gone so far that it's > > practically impossible to get right unless you are lucky enough to > > have the assistance of a tool, hell they even maintain a fork of > > Eclipse called SpringSource, for the purpose. > > > > I think it was James Gosling who once said "Every configuration file > > ends up becoming a programming language" and I think we can all agree > > that XML, Turing complete or not, is a crappy programming language. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
