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Re: terra incognita

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: terra incognita
• From: Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@r...>
• Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 02:04:10 -0500
• In-reply-to: <5.1.0.14.2.20011216205651.02475de0@p...>
• Organization: Red Bridge Interactive, Inc.
• References: <5.1.0.14.2.20011216205651.02475de0@p...>

> At the time I argued, and I think I still believe, that XML is
> about as close as you can get to the *opposite* of O-O thinking.
> The O-O paradigm is that objects are nicely packaged opaque
> bundles of code & data that do things through carefully designed
> & presented interface, and you're not supposed to bother your
> pretty little head about what's happening inside.

Yep, though whether the interface is strongly typed or not is  another 
question. 

> A chunk of XML on the other hand perforce exposes all its
> internal structure and does precisely nothing.  These two
> paradigms come from different planets.

Another way to look at XML is as a set of (nested) interfaces with getters 
for retrieving elements by gi(type) and/or position. I first heard this from 
an OODB fellow... and for certain things, it does make sense.

> At the end of the day code and data just aren't that much
> like each other.  Maybe this is why Lisp never took over the
> world, cool though it is.  -Tim

Maybe I'm an unrepentant LISP hacker, but I think code and data are very much 
the same. Sometimes I treat my code as data (when I'm calculating complexity 
metrics or simply searching it), and sometimes, the data as code (for 
example, XTND/XEXPR are data, but could be interpreteted as code)

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: terra incognita
    • From: "Ramin Firoozye" <ramin@w...>

• References:
  • Re: terra incognita
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>

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