Python declarative

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Frank Millman <frank at chagford.com> wrote:
> I have realised that we unlikely to come to an agreement on this in the near
> future, as our philosophies are completely different.
>
> You have stated that your objective is to express as much as possible in
> Python code.
>
> I have stated that my objective is to express as little as possible in
> Python code.

Ah but the question is *why* you want to minimize code. I write
everything in code because it minimizes unnecessary coding - yes,
that's right, I maximize code to minimize code :) - because all that
code that isn't written also isn't debugged, isn't maintained, and
isn't placing unnecessary restrictions on anything. What's the
advantage of doing it in XML?

Your GUI builder is all very well, but it could as easily write Python
code as XML, so it doesn't give a strong incentive for XML. And
personally, I think it's more likely to be a waste of effort, too, but
that's more because a good GUI builder takes a *ton* of effort to
build. That's time that has to be spent up-front, before you have
experience with the system, before you _can get_ experience with the
system - and, see above, it's code that has to be debugged and
maintained.

Every framework has to justify itself. Just "it lets people not write
code" isn't enough unless not-writing-code can justify the costs.

ChrisA