After Parrot, what next?

[Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes]

Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:29:37 GMT in <3ad5c8ae.159009144 at news.okstate.edu>,
David C. Ullrich <ullrich at math.okstate.edu> spake:
>On Thu, 12 Apr 2001 08:45:59 GMT, "Fredrik Lundh"
><fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
>>Neel wrote:
>>> You're too late.
>>>   http://www.w3.org/TR/xexpr
>>> Yes, I thought it was a joke at first too, but no joy. How can
>>> anyone possibly consider this a good idea? The mind boggles. :(
>>some XML-heads dream of the day when everyone is using XML editors,
>>and plain text editors are outlawed.

  *Most* "XML-heads", however, like text editors.  Mainly because most
of the current crop of XML editors are badly ported SGML editors, but
still...

  They'll take vim from me when they pry it from my computer's cold dead
HD.

>"In many applications of XML, there is a requirement for using 
>XML in conjunction with a scripting language."
>>  in that universe, an XML-based pro-
>>gramming language might make some sense.
>Also _might_ make some sense _in_ an application of XML?

  I've worked on an XML-based scripting language of my own, and my main
motivation was that in applications that already contain a parser to
handle XML, why include yet another parser with another syntax?  Why not
just use the XML parser for the scripting as well?

  Of course, that's for Java, which has no run-time parser.  In Python
programs, there's already a perfectly functional parser, so you can
re-use that as the scripting language, if you can trust the user to
write safe code.  If you need a sandbox, OTOH, you have to write another
language, and you're back to the need for a parser.

  One very nice feature of an XML-based programming language is that
it's unambiguous.  Plaintext languages are more terse, but determining
where an expression starts and ends requires complex grammar handling;
in XML, the close tags let the syntax define the start and end of
things.  Lisp shares that feature, but since close-parens aren't named,
it's much harder to read.

  <for var="i" start="1" end="1000" step="1"><shrug/></for>

-- 
 <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"I will tell you things that will make you laugh and uncomfortable and really
fucking angry and that no one else is telling you.  What I won't do is bullshit
you.  I'm here for the same thing you are.  The Truth." -Transmetropolitan #39