xml-dev - Re: XML API specification

[gtn@ebt.com (Gavin Nicol)]

>Could we go through the bone of contention up front 
>and just settle it:  are grove and grove plan definitions of 
>use to an object-oriented API design?  Really just asking here, 
>so this gets settled and doesn't crop up again and again.

This depends. You can model a grove *soooo* simply, and it's
actually a very useful data structure. I find grove plans to
not be all that useful (I'd rather just model the generic grove
and leave the grove plan up to the contructing application).

That said, slightly more concrete objects are also useful. This
is the main difference between NXP, lark, my API, and groves: the
level of generality in the objects. I tend toward absolute generality,
where NXP and lark just model XML.

>Wouldn't that also avoid the platform wars issues by settling 
>on a virtual machine?  Given that most operating systems are 
>supporting it or will be soon, that it is fast becoming the 
>choice of other web languages for "heavy lifter" scripting, 
>I agree it looks ideal.
>
>Java is rather slow, but perhaps that is implementation and 
>not an issue for an API spec.  Correct me if that is wrong.

No. Java is just another implementation language (and it does have a
number of drawbacks, like lack of continuations). The reason 
I argue for IDL is that it is language *and* platform independent. Is
have JAVA/C++/C  and other bindings specified, and *free*
implementations of the resolution and object instantiation mechanisms. 

I would also argue that distributed objects are where the world is
heading: code replication is fine for certain things, but not for
others. 

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