Re: [xml-dev] XML Redux

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

Kurt Cagle scripsit:
> I think this might be a good point to bring back discussion on E4X, which
> did in fact solve most of the issues that have been brought up on the list
> several times. It treated XML as a native data type, provided a JavaScript
> syntax for working with the XML native type (and XMLList type), could easily
> have been incorporated into JSON. 

It's too powerful to fit JSON.  In particular, in E4X you can incorporate
arbitrary JavaScript expressions within braces into character content and
attribute values.  JSON is not about arbitrary JavaScript expressions.

> I do not believe, and have not believed for a while, that the problem with
> XML is the syntax.

+1

> There's a common profile of XML that most people use that use 80% of
> the features, and these work just fine, but you can expand out to the
> remaining 20% of features now if you need them. The problem is that
> the TOOLS for working with XML in the browsers suck. Long, complex
> DOM name calls, XPath requiring six objects to do anything useful, an
> eleven year old implementation of XSLT with incomplete support. Provide
> better tools in the browser, either E4X, XQuery in the Browser or
> some similar language, and people who hate XML for legitimate reasons
> (it's a pain in the butt to work with) will not have that argument.

Not just in browsers, but everywhere else too.  XML's data model is inherently
much more complicated than anybody needs.  By streamlining the data model
to elements with a name, an attribute map, and a child sequence you get
way past the 80/20 point with much greater ease of use.

-- 
John Cowan        http://ccil.org/~cowan   cowan@ccil.org
Lope de Vega: "It wonders me I can speak at all.  Some caitiff rogue
did rudely yerk me on the knob, wherefrom my wits yet wander."
An Englishman: "Ay, belike a filchman to the nab'll leave you
crank for a spell." --Harry Turtledove, Ruled Britannia