Re: [xml-dev] DOM's javascript roots (was Re: [xml-dev] Have JDOM / XOM

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Robin Berjon wrote:

> No, I don't think that's true. If the DOM had been created for 
> Javascript it would be a *lot* less horrible than all the hoops it had 
> to jump through to support utterly braindead languages like Java.

And if DOM had been created for Java it would be a *lot* less horrible 
than all the hoops it had to jump through to support utterly braindead 
languages like C++.

And if DOM had been created for C++ it would be a *lot* less horrible 
than all the hoops it had to jump through to support utterly braindead 
languages like Perl.

And if DOM had been created for Perl it would be a *lot* less horrible 
than all the hoops it had to jump through to support utterly braindead 
languages like JavaScript.

The mistake was not anyone language's. It was trying to be all things to 
all languages. That approach is doomed to failure.


> The reason alternatives to the DOM have not been all that successful for 
> Java is because Java is all about cargo-culting and pain. Cargo-culting 
> as in you throw IO exceptions when you write to memory, because it looks 
> like what the other guys are doing (I don't even count those anymore), 
> so if other folks are using the DOM you use the same, none of that crazy 
> new stuff can possibly be any good. Pain as in if you've resigned 
> yourself to need seven lines of code to open a text file for writing, 

FileWriter out = new FileWriter("filename.txt");

One line. What's so hard about that? Of course you can make it more 
complex if you like. You'd probably want to do that in order avoid 
assumptions about  file system conventions, character encodings, current 
working directories, and the like. However you need to do that in Perl, 
Python, etc. as well.




--
ïElliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim