[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: XAPI

• From: Jonathan Robie <jwrobie@m...>
• To: Peter Newcomb <peter@t...>
• Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 14:07:06 -0400

At 01:29 PM 6/24/97 -0400, Peter Newcomb wrote:
>> [Jonathan Robie]
>>
>> Hmmm. IDL == Language independent spec of an API....might this be
>> better approached as an XML application? I.e. a DTD for the XML API
>> spec. A doc conforming to that spec.  that can be down-translated to
>> Java, C++, Python and (gasp) IDL!

For the record, I didn't say that. Sean McGrath did, quoting my earlier
message, which went like this:

>Is there really an advantage to defining it in IDL first? The IDL could be
>created after the specification is finished in Java, and the Java-based
>specification is probably easier to create, understand, and test. I *like*
>making things language independent, but at this stage, I'm leery of adding
>complexity that doesn't add any new conceptual power.

So not only am I in agreement with the rest of your message, your message
actually agrees with what I said earlier!

Incidentally, Alex Milowski referred to the "factory design pattern". Using
design patterns as a basis for the design is really helpful, because there
is a book which describes each of these patterns in detail, complete with
diagrams, scenarios, etc. For instance, there are 9 pages on the factory
design pattern that Alex mentioned. This makes it much easier to communicate
about design choices on a high conceptual level. POET's Wildflower API,
which was developed completely independently of Alex's software, also uses a
design patterns approach to parse, manage, and navigate SGML documents in
the document repository. I wonder if some of the rest of us are also design
patterns critters?


Jonathan

***************************************************************************
Jonathan Robie   jwrobie@m...  http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703    http://www.poet.com
***************************************************************************


xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To unsubscribe, send to majordomo@i... the following message;
unsubscribe xml-dev
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@i...)

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: XAPI
    • From: Peter Newcomb <peter@t...>
  • Re: XAPI
    • From: jtigue@d... (John Tigue)

• Prev by Date: Re: XAPI
• Next by Date: Re: XAPI
• Previous by thread: Re: XAPI
• Next by thread: Re: XAPI
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread