Kinda new at this, so I don't know if I fully grasp the issue. XML is very different from procedural languages like Java. I don't think it is Turing-complete (YMMV). But I note that Turing demos have been done in XSLT, so maybe minilang is more like that, I don't know.
But the same criticism (non-turing-complete) has been made of SQL. That doesn't prevent it from being remarkably good at what it does, which is not everything. I'd hate to try to write a video game or spreadsheet only in SQL. Somebody, somewhere has probably tried it. I usually try to pick the best tool for the job at hand, from the (too short) list of tools I know how to use. Obviously some like minilang, others prefer Java. Something you know deeply (Java in your case) you can come back to without losing a lot, 5 minutes like you say. Something you don't know well is much harder (like minilang for you, I assume). I knew guys (lawyers, mostly) who were never "programmers", but wrote WordPerfect macros that were amazing. (I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.) I have also seen spreadsheets twisted to perform unimaginably complex tasks they were never designed for. In the construction industry we used to say "a guy with a hammer in his hand thinks everything is a nail." Sounds like minilang may be great for simple CRUD stuff that happens all the time. If your needs are more complex, something else may fit better. Unless you use it often, the learning curve may be steep. I find the whole ofbiz learning curve pretty steep at the moment. So the choices are 1) just invest the time to learn it well, 2) make helpful suggestions which others may or may not agree with, 3) find a tool you like better, or 4) write your own. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and there is nothing wrong with any of these options, and they are not mutually exclusive. In response to your first post on this subject, I have a hard time believing that PHP is the solution to every problem, but then I'm a perl guy. :) Still, it seems like most of the glue is there to talk to ofbiz in pretty much whatever you want. Once you learn what's there, which as I say, is the hard part for me right now. On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 10:06 -0500, Ruth Hoffman wrote: > Indeed! > I still say it is very curious that there haven't been any comments by > non-committers (except me and the original comment) concerning > Mini-language use. > Regards, > Ruth > > Jacopo Cappellato wrote: > > On Feb 23, 2010, at 3:53 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > > > > >> If it takes 2-3 days to learn the mini-language, then I have to do that it > >> each and every time I need to use it. Java (PHP, Bean Shell, Groovy...) > >> takes me 5-10 minutes no matter how long I've been away from it. > >> > > > > This is an interesting idiosyncrasy :-) > > > > Jacopo > > -- Matt Warnock <[email protected]> RidgeCrest Herbals, Inc.
