Re: Config_Files proposal

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Its not that the XML/Ada thing is "bad" - just that I would prefer one that
built the whole thing up with tagged records, dispatching, etc., rather than
using discriminated records. Its almost like it is saying "Oh, the DOM
specified by the W3C is very OO and could readily be recognized in *real* OO
languages like C++ or Java - complete with inheritance and dispatching and
all the cool OO stuff, but since Ada isn't *really* an OO language it has to
kind of kludge the DOM together with discriminated records and all that."

That, and I've always felt that discriminated records were a pain in the
posterior. Maybe its just me, but they always seem to cause trouble as you
run into language rules with them that don't let them do what you want to
do. Tagged records just seem like a much more elegant solution.

I've looked over the XML/Ada stuff just enough to know that trying to
umbundle the discriminated records and turn them into tagged records with
inheritance and dispatching and all that, would be something beyond
"trivial". I wouldn't see the point in even attempting to do so unless that
was the direction chosen for the future of the project by the guys who
currently own it. (Would you really want to see two divergent
implementations, or would it be better to have just one?)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Georg Bauhaus" <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message
news:aesjsv$7kv$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de...
>
> From what I can see, there isn't too much to be done, since the OO
> approach is already reflected in discriminated subtypes and corresponding
> packages. DOM2 support seems quite complete, the IDL interfaces have
> been mostly implemented in XML/Ada.
>