Re: ANN: Etiquette: a protocol construction tool

Eugene Zaikonnikov <[email protected]> writes:

> * "Miles" == Miles Egan <[email protected]> writes:
> 
> Miles>  My impression of beep so far is that it's basically a useful
> Miles>  and reasonable idea but that its use of XML is somewhat
> Miles>  gratuitous.
> 
> That was my impression too. As Peter mentioned, limiting XML to
> describing the protocols alone sounds useful enough. IMHO if the
> BEEP team made a layered standard (where one could choose to either
> use BEEP command syntax or roll their own), BEEP framework could
> become applicable to much wider domain.

Actually where I was hoping to go with my questions was to use
BEEP--assuming it was using XML for configuration foo--as an example
of a place where I think Lisp could win big--when something uses nasty
piles of XML for configuration, a Lisp implementation can hide the XML
behind a still text-based, still programatic interface (as opposed to
having to write some whizzy GUI tool to hide the horror) in the form
of a simple s-exp based config file that maps to the XML or better
yet, in some cases, a set of macros that allow the user to define
things much more concisely. If desired a "compliant" implementation
can always be provided by writing code to translate from the
"standard" XML form to the underlying s-exp form the code actually
uses. As a better example of this, Mozilla--as an application
development platform not just a browser--uses XML to define how an
application is put together. One of my random ideas in the "to be
explored someday" is looking into embedding a Common Lisp (ECL maybe
or CLISP) into Mozilla allowing it to be used instead of Javascript or
C++ for writing XUL components. And as part of that, replacing the XML
gorp with some nice "define-xul-app" macros, etc. (Sorry, Miles, I'm
breaking the clump charter a bit talking about something I'd like to
implement with no working code to show for it. Shame on me.)

-Peter

-- 
Peter Seibel                                      [email protected]

         Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp