Re: [xml-dev] Highly Declarative Designs

[John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>]

Costello, Roger L. scripsit:

> I propose this as a characteristic:
> 
>     If you can ask a question and get the answer by
>     exclusively navigating markup, without any processing
>     of data, then you have a highly declarative design.
> 
> More ... http://www.xfront.com/Highly-Declarative-Designs.pdf

Read that; interesting.  Of course, what counts as "navigating markup"
partly depends on the accident of what happens to be available in
XPath, which is a very different story between 1.0 and 2.0.  So I don't
think there's any theoretical distinction here, just a practical one,
generally consistent with the idea that my code is just data consumed
by your interpreter.

-- 
John Cowan    cowan@ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was
leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the
Egyptians worshiped an insect.  --Benjamin Disraeli