Re: About o:XML

On Tue, Apr 19, 2005 at 05:34:56PM +0200, Frank Raiser wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 06:25:05PM -0700, Brian Chrisman wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 03:58:56PM -0000, Ashwin Jayaprakash wrote:
> > - syntax error issues.  Many of what would normally be syntax
> >   errors determined by the compiler, can be picked up by verifying
> >   a program against an XSD schema document.  Probably makes it
> >   easier for those writing compilers?
> 
> Again a reason to store programs in XML. And yes it does make it easier for
> those writing compilers, as the frontend parser is no longer neccessary (or
> rather replaced by a commonplace XML parser). If you don't write the programs
> directly in XML though it comes at the cost of an additional parser being
> needed to perform the translation to XML.
> 
> If you write the programs directly in XML it makes it easier for compiler
> writers too, compared to writing them in Java/C/... However I think this
> is an irrelevant point when deciding whether to write code in XML or not. A
> programmer does not decide to use a language because those who have written
> the compiler for it had an easy time. Why not all use brainfuck then? Finding
> syntax errors is trivial and a full blown compiler takes less than a hundred
> lines. But it's obvious that no one wants to write programs in brainfuck just
> because compiling it is so nice.

I'm in pretty much violent agreement with all your points.

Choosing a language for which it is relatively easy to write
a compiler allows you greater choice in whose compiler you
will use and what features will be available.  I think if I
were to write a non-XML-syntax language right now, I'd pre-parse
it into an XML document anyways.... Brainfsck may be a logical
extrema in this argument, but we're generally talking about
useful languages, I think.. :)

btw, have you (or for that matter, anybody) heard of any source management
systems that are tailored for XML-language development?
In particular, I thought it would be pretty nice to have such a system
that will report context of changes made... some such systems do this
for other languages...

-Brian