Re: Advantage of XML based GUI? (was Re: Ada-inspired OS/Language)

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote:
> : you still boil
> : down to conventions and data format.
> 
> Sure, and in a sense, an Ada program is just a string
> that is in accordance with some grammar, that is
> acceepted by some machinery. :-) That is, all this gossip
> about the safe programming language Ada boils down
> to accepted/not accepted, right?

I don't want to get drawn into this, so I'll just focus
on the XML topic at hand.. ;-)

> Besides, is there a convention based data format similar
> to XML based formats that provides for builtin referential
> integrity (like via IDREF?)? One that has well defined
> inclusion and reuse mechanisms? One that allows renaming
> of values?

It doesn't matter how wonderful
the XML format/standard/convention is. To me (at least),
it is _just_ a data format with a standard. :-)

> I'm not convinced that calling a BNF like thing (and more)
> mere convention is really appropriate.

I'm not sure why this is being raised. The original point
was calling an O/S something to do with XML, or to put
"XML" in the name because of its present "hype". I say,
"why do that?" because it is just a data format. Is it
really going to revolutionize the O/S we are talking
about? I guess what I am saying is "not everyone is as
hyped about XML as maybe you are."  Is that a fair
statement to make?

> : Beyond that, you are just talking about tools that
> : work with XML.
> 
> Well, yes and no (certainly no, actually).  There is a notion
> of a conforming XML system, and you can't just specify document
> types or even be done with wellformedness and then use, say
> pattern based text extraction and say, "we are doing XML based
> data processing". At least you'll be missing something then :-)

But _any_ "data format" has a concept of "wellformedness".
This is not unique to XML.

> As a side note, why are these standard lectures called
> "algorithms _and_ data structures"? 

Where does the algorithm come in?  Maybe a poor choice
in title?

> There is even data
> driven programming, so a decent data format, and means
> of securely specifying it, is crucial, I think.

Every program reacts to the input data it is given (ie.
data driven). In fact, in addition to the text and bss
regions, every program has a "data" region. Sounds like
a data driven process to me ;-) . So I fail
to see how XML is "new" in this regard or in this role.
It still just represents plain old data in a new
wrapper.

> I'll concede that XML text doesn't look pretty or elegant, but
> text with XML markup in it is really useful, 

I never said it wasn't useful. ;-)

> for example
> when debugging data streams, due to being explicit.

How do you define "explicit" that is different from
any other data format?  Isn't any defined
format "explicit"?  I don't see XML being special
in this regard.

It is still just a data format ;-)

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg