[XML-SIG] Re: [DO-SIG] Python language bidning January 2000 Draft

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Duncan Grisby writes:
 > Is DOM intended to ever be used in a full distributed environment?  If
 > so, supporting direct attribute access is surely a bad idea. Any code
 > which uses direct attribute access will have to be changed to use the
 > _get and _set operations expected by a CORBA ORB.

  In a distributed environment, client-side attribute access, even if
made to look "direct" (foo.bar), would have to map to the distributed
_get_ and _set_ interfaces.  This is actually very reasonable for
Python, but is also an extension of the current mapping.

 > Looking at the IDL used by DOM, it looks like the W3C don't intend it
 > to be used with CORBA. IDL like
 > 
 >              attribute DOMString        nodeValue;
 >                                         // raises(DOMException) on setting
 >                                         // raises(DOMException) on retrieval

  Ouch!  So why even have the attribute?  This appears useless;
perhaps subclasses are expected to implement it in ways appropriate to
the specific type?

 > shows a clear disregard for the semantics of CORBA IDL. That isn't a
 > Python issue, of course. Even ignoring things like that, the IDL isn't
 > CORBA 2.3 compliant. Just for the amusement value, here's a list of
 > the errors in it.

  Why oh why does anyone listen to the W3C anymore?  Haven't they
pretty much done themselves in for things like this?  -sigh-


  -Fred


-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at beopen.com>
BeOpen PythonLabs Team Member