Re: [xml-dev] Feasibility of "do all application coding in the XML langu

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2008-12-01 11:06 -0500, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>Michael Kay wrote:
>>If all the inputs and outputs of the application are in XML, and if the
>>processing is within the capabilities of those languages, then why would you
>>want to do anything else?
>
>Because I think this situation genuinely applies in about 5-10% of 
>actual applications...

I disagree if by "actual applications" you mean "actual applications 
acting on XML documents".

>Please, certainly, promote your excellent tools for those 
>applications - but let's not all get drunk on the prospect of XML 
>data needing XML processing.

I'm not sure that is fair, especially given the level of excellence 
of Mike's tools.  I didn't read his comment at all as boasting.

Too many times in client situations I've delivered an end-to-end XML 
solution to a problem they are having and at the 11th hour some Java 
programmer on the team decides to "just replace this step with a 
simple Java program so that I don't have to invoke an XML processor" 
and messes things up.

The burden of handling XML issues such as character sets and 
well-formedness moves to the programmer when not using XML-tools for 
processing XML documents.

I see a pure XML tool approach to a problem being *safer* than a 
mixed-technology approach to a problem.

And given how well Mike's tools work, it makes delivering 
professional results easy and for many aspects of XML processing 
bulletproof in ways not provided for by using non-XML-native tools.

Unfortunately I cannot say that for all XML tools.  I exploit useful 
XML and XSLT facilities that are not properly supported by many popular tools.

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

--
Upcoming XSLT/XSL-FO, UBL and code list hands-on training classes:
:  Sydney, AU 2009-01/02; Brussels, BE 2009-03; Prague, CZ 2009-03
Training tools: Comprehensive interactive XSLT/XPath 1.0/2.0 video
Video sample lesson:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrNjJCh7Ppg
Video course overview:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTiodiij6gE
G. Ken Holman                 mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
Crane Softwrights Ltd.          http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/x/
Male Cancer Awareness Nov'07  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/x/bc
Legal business disclaimers:  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/legal