Subject: Re: SGML/XML syntax for DSSSL From: "Mitch C. Amiano" <amiamc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 09:47:27 -0400 |
For what it's worth... I'm a unix-bred programmer, have used Sed, Egrep, and Make extensively, and Perl just makes me want to Gawk. Sed, AWK, and Make (and variants) all support some form of declarative programming, and each has it's own flakey syntax. Yet another flakey syntax won't do the programming community any harm. Some programmers may turn to it just for a change of pace. I'd argue that most Joe and Jane users will be unwilling to commit time and brain cells to a new syntax, even if the tool has been (as Sed/Grep/Awk/Make) available for decades. That suggests using a syntax that at the highest level of perusal is cosmetically similar to HTML, and it probably should be XML compliant. This would give it an added advantage over CSS, in providing, at least for a casual user, "one syntax" to learn. A similar problem is faced by RAD development environment vendors. The solution usually provided is similar: a "syntaxless" interface which saves/exports to a serialized representation of objects and scopes, and a programming language which is edited directly using your favorite text editor. This convergence could be due to to a total lack of creativity, but it could also be because it's a best-fit design given the available technology, and know-how, and OO biases of the market. RE: James' suggestions: > <element name=WARN> > <paragraph font-size=12pt font-family-name=Times-Roman > first-line-start-indent=20pt> > <chars font-weight=bold>WARN</chars> > <children> > </paragraph> > </element> > > is quite natural. I agree, with the reasoning stated above. Further, as a (presumably) XML-compliant document, it should be amenable to processing by a variety of SGML and XML tools. > I think this stops being natural when you start trying to doing programming. > But for this, an alternative syntax seems less important to me: the fact > that you have to program in a functional way is a far bigger leap for a > C/C++/Java programmer than is the syntax. The perception of having to "program" at all will be a more significant inhibitor. I'll go back to lurking now, but, for the sake of clarification, is this discussion about an application-of/front-end-for DSSSL, or a variation of DSSSL itself? -- Mitch C. Amiano, Technical Staff Member Advanced Design Process Group, 1630 Hardware Department Alcatel Network Systems 2912 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 USA 919 850 1246 amiamc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Opinions expressed are my own and are not a representation of Alcatel DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist
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