Nick, commenting on:
> <device id="default">
> <parameter id="W">W</parameter>
> <device id="imode">
> <parameter id="X">X</parameter>
> <device id="502i>
> <parameter id="Y">Y</parameter>
> <device id="SO502i">
> <parameter id="Z">Z</parameter>
> </device>
> </device>
> </device>
> </device>
...makes a good point:
> Is it not better that each language takes the xml file and parses it into
> whatever form it pleases? (as I think Mika T suggested).
If the goal is to be language-agnostic, any object-orientation
implied in the XML should align with what's common to
the object models of most of the likely languages: Java and Perl.
(Ruby? This is Japan, after all.)
This means, at least, single inheritance. I don't know the
Perl object model well enough to say how this constrains
things otherwise. Can anyone help here?
> leap@gol.com writes
> If you really want close alignment between your
> XML inheritance hierarchy and instantiations of Java
>
> So I feel that this is specifically "NOT" something we should worry about
> too much...
Even if it gets the thing off the ground faster?
OK, well, maintainability will matter eventually: if inheritance in
the XML makes things so unreadable that nobody wants to
maintain it, that's obviously bad. Who cares if it's easier to tack
on a new device if you can't even debug the XML
for the ones you have?
There's always XSLT if it needs to be backed out to some
flatter representation, isn't there?
Just some considerations, here, and mine is certainly not the
informed opinion of someone who's done anything
like this in XML; I haven't.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
Received on Tue Feb 26 14:05:40 2002