Scripting vs. XML

Hi all,

    I have recently taken second look at using XUL for a new project and was 
disappointed for the same reason why I abandoned the idea first time: the 
syntax. You see, I really like the idea of having a user interface language 
which is delivered to the browser and which enables a rich interface to the 
end user without round trips to the server. The concept is clear and I most 
definitely am in support of it. My only concern, and this is a big one, is 
that I feel that XML is inappropriate for scripting (which is essentially 
what we are talking about when it comes to building user interfaces).

XML (and HTML) are document mark up languages. They perform a this task very 
well but are completely inappropriate as scripting languages. XUL isn't the 
only perpetrator in this regard, another classic example of an inappropriate 
use of XML is in ant build scripts.

I really believe that XUL would be much better off if it lost the X and  was 
just a browser interpretable scripting language (JavaScript?) which was used 
for describing user interfaces. I would encourage everyone to have a look at 
the following article which discusses some of the issues of using XML in 
place of a scripting language: 
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2003/06/10/jython.html.

Regards,
Dominic.




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