Re: Interactive XML

Kent Fitch wrote:
> 
> I agree with "dismally inadequate" - the escape to a "scripting language"
> is provided as a way to perform unanticipated processing to meet
> specialist needs (hopefully the common stuff will be provided in core
> XSL).  As such, the "scripting language" needs to be general purpose and
> powerful, including features programmers are now starting to take for
> granted such as exception handling, strong typing and inheritance.

This is not true. Stylesheet creation is not general purpose programming.
It is more akin to other types of special-purpose programming: database
apps (VB, Powerbuilder, Python), text processing (Perl, Python) and so
forth. I would be quite annoyed if I had to treat small extensions to my
stylesheet as if they were large software engineering projects: declaring
types, declaring variables, declaring exceptions, etc.
 
> Although some will argue that using a language such as Java will
> discourage casual script writers which may be happier with EcmaScript, I
> suggest that it is important that a widely understood and implemented
> language such as Java be at least a scripting option: JVM's will soon be
> everywhere - why not use them?

This paragraphs seems to be quite a fallback from your previous one. First
it was "ECMAScript is all wrong" and then "well, maybe Java is not quite
right, but it is really easy to implement." I think that XSL should be
completed with an ECMAScript automation language for now, because it is
much closer to the right thing than Java is. Stylesheet developement is
not general purpose programming. If you want to use Java for XML
processing, there is a rich and robust set of tools that allow you to do
that ALREADY.

ECMAScript is also designed explicitly to be embedded. Java is not. A Java
program is defined as a series of Java classes. Are you going to put a
class in each XSL rule??? That doesn't seem right.

 Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Three things trust above all else: Your knowledge of your craft
That someone turns a profit, and that you will get the shaft
http://www.geezjan.org/humor/computers/threes.html


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