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> - The idea of programming languages in XML syntax seems to be on the
> wane (other than XSLT of course, which is not *really* a programming
> lanuage even if it is Turing-complete). The idea of integrating XML
> ideas into programming languge syntax seems to be on the rise, e.g.
> the JSON and Python stuff, E4X, C-omega and friends, Java's apparent
> plans in the Dolphin release, etc. Anyone disagree?
I disagree.
Phil Wadler disagreed at the Summer School of Functional Programming 1982
(Oxford) stating in his presentation that "XSLT is perhaps the most widely
used functional programming language".
TIOBE Programming Community Index
(http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index/tekst.htm) disagree. They have included
XSLT in the group of programming languages that have the potential to become
part of the top 50 in the near future. Some other programming languages in
this group are: APL, Clean, Eiffel, Erlang, Haskell.
The fact that XSLT has a strong (multi-thousand) developer base and that
there are several successful commercial IDE's for XSLT programming offering
syntax (schema) -based intellisense editors and debuggers probably also
shows that XSLT is not different from other programming languages.
XSLT is used and relied upon by definite user audiences for solving
particular types of problems and XSLT is the best programming language for
solving problems within its main problem-area -- tree processing.
Of course, it all depends on what definition we use for a "programming
language". This is why I am quoting independent sources above.
My personal opinion is that XSLT 2.0 is much closer to a possible prevailing
conventional understanding of what a "programming language" is. It has
static typing, compile-time error diagnostic and its own function
definitions. Different vendours offer byte-code XSLT compilation and we will
soon see compiled libraries of XSLT functions.
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.
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