Re: Is XML UI language a dirty word?

Hi,

Gerald Bauer wrote:

>Hello,
>
>  It looks like Amy Fowler (Sun) goes to great length
>to distance the JDNC markup language from the XUL
>family.
>
>  e.g. Amy writes:
>
>  JDNC Markup Language is not a user interface markup
>language, but an extensible configuration language for
>UI and non-UI components alike. 
>
XML UI language is too restrictive when the platform allows to extends 
with any Java classes.
In our platform, we have 'user preferences save/retrieve', 'audio', 
'capture graphics regions', 'soap client', 'jdbc connection/rowset' that 
are tags with no relations to User Interface. So we call it XPML for 
Extensible Programming Markup Language.
Sun call it JDNC, and it is not restricted to UI. So a 'extensible 
configuration language' seems appropriated.

>  But then again Amy writes in the JDNC project page:
>
>   JDNC leverages the power of J2SE and Swing while
>providing a higher level API, as well as an optional
>XML markup language, which enables common
>user-interface functionality to be constructed more
>quickly, without requiring extensive Swing or GUI
>programming skill.
>
>  And in the blog story titled "The JDNC project
>debuts" Amy calls Sun's new XUL format a XML
>configuration language.
>
>  Now what do you think about Amy's hairsplitting?
>What do you call Sun's new JDNC XML UI language? Is it
>a XUL format or not?
>
I think you interchange the term XUL and XML. There are a lot of XML 
language used to define User Interface and programs behavior. For me, 
there is only one XUL, ie. the Mozilla XUL. Many languages that you call 
XUL are XUL look alike and many are not XUL at all. I have started on 
the idea of creating UI by using XML file in 1999 with a project called 
Proto http://www.pierlou.com/prototype, long before (in computer time) 
XUL came out in 2001. So in a way, all UI languages should be called 
'Proto' languages. But no, because the Mozilla team put functionnalities 
in their language that was not in mine at that time. I started over and 
create a new language that is geared toward Java programmers. So my tags 
looks familiar for them (jpanel, jtoolbar, etc...). And then not being 
fully compliant to the Mozilla XUL language, I don't see our language as 
a XUL language.
http://www.ultrid.com

Pierre Morel