From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,38159b1b5557a2e7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-01-31 05:20:59 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!nnx.oleane.net!oleane!freenix!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: Marius Amado Alves Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Nature of XML (ramblings) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:08:13 +0000 Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1075555219 45585 80.67.180.195 (31 Jan 2004 13:20:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:20:19 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020623 Debian/1.0.0-0.woody.1 X-Accept-Language: en X-OriginalArrivalTime: 31 Jan 2004 13:19:32.0972 (UTC) FILETIME=[DD751AC0:01C3E7FC] X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p5 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.3 Precedence: list List-Id: Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5143 Date: 2004-01-31T13:08:13+00:00 Robert I. Eachus wrote: > Georg Bauhaus wrote: > >> Marius Amado Alves wrote: >> : Programming languages have semantics. XML does not. Simple, no? >> >> If an IDREF attribute implies that an attribute value must >> refer to an element with the corresponding id, is that syntax? > Ok, I stand corrected. I should have said *operational* semantics. > Guys, try not to get carried away! In the post that started this > unending thread I said: "I don't know if you consider SQL, XML, and > HTML as a programming languages, but recently I have written a lot of > all three." > > Should I have said I don't know ... and I don't care. ;-) I consider > writing SQL and HTML as part of a database interface program as > programming. The fact that the SQL and HTML may be in quotes inside > an Ada subprogram is not really relevant. (They count as non-comment > source lines of code.) On the other hand, if I am creating a static > web page in HTML I don't consider that activity to be programming. If > you have a different definition you use, fine. > Sure. Just rambling now: it's interesting that usualy the somehow most deep, higher concepts in a domain are the least well defined: programming, programming languages. In linguistics "semantics" has been called "the science that does not exist" (Fernando Belo?). And of course some if not all linguistics semanticists agree but notice that you can still 'do' semantics even though the term is not defined. In programming we may be a bit more 'safe'. Ada, SQL, XML, HTML are all well defined. As is the notion of general purpose language. Of course Ada is such a thing whereas SQL, XML and HTML are not. SQL has Module for extending C and Ada with it self. Of course when we use SQL, etc. strings in an Ada program we're using these languages, but that does not make them programming languages. We also often use English strings in an Ada program e.g. for dialog boxes. That is a kind of multilingual programming, but I would say 'proper' multilingual programming is when you combine multiple *general purpose*, or 'operational' languages. Systems often combine Ada and C. I remember writing a system with Ada, C, Prolog, SQL, CGI (HTTP) and HTML. And of course there are the ORBs. As I said, just rambling, but sometimes I feel the need to discuss these higher concepts, to check if something has changed there with the continuing appearance of new 'technologies'. I guess no changes since last time I looked. Also, any XML appraisal touches a sensitive button in me. I used to be attracted to XML. Now I find it horrible. Just today I got this feeling independently. I was reading a PhD thesis by Parmentier, where he transforms from BibTeX format to XML for "ease of processing". He shows an entry in the the two formats side by side. The contrast in readability is stunning: BiTeX very readable, XML completely unreadable. And (La)TeX is not usually particularly readable. Also, you could see right away that an automaton for parsing the BibTeX would be much simpler to right than for the XML, and I bet more simpler to do it e.g. in Ada that to write the XSLT for the XML (and assembling and all the required tools). XML is the major hoax of two millenia.