Re: [xml-dev] How does XML limit "the range of implementationdecisions t

[Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

In that case why not say that the code I write is in Connextra format,
(as an ... I want to ... so that ...) and I hand this on to a
developer who converts it into (whatever paradigm he/she likes) which
gets converted into something procedural.

I think it is all like the Church/Turing debate - it is all equivalent
but comes down to culture.
----
Stephen D Green

On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 22:20, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
>
> Well yes, the code we write generally ends up being executed on a von Neumann machine, and von Neumann machines are procedural, but that's not really the point. We're talking about the code we write, not the machinery for executing it.
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>
> > On 23 Jun 2022, at 22:09, Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The SQL is declarative, and non-procedural, but isn't the execution
> > plan into which the SQL is converted, procedural? Isn't all
> > declarative, 'non-procedural' code usually actually turned into
> > something procedural behind the scenes? Isn't declarative,
> > 'non-procedural' code actually an illusion, wrapping procedural code
> > under the hood - smoke and mirrors? I might use a lambda LINQ
> > expression to handle SQL databases or XML and think these are
> > declarative or functional expressions which get computed, yet I'd be
> > surprised if it doesn't actually get turned into a lot of procedural
> > code that gets executed.
> > ----
> > Stephen D Green
> >
> > On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 12:16, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> The domain he's referring to is not XML, but what he calls "scanning" (probably meaning here lexical analysis).
> >>
> >> I actually think he's wrong. Nonprocedural programming is most successful in domains such as database query (SQL) where there's a vast range of implementation decisions to be made (query execution plans), and choosing the right one is best done by a machine rather than a human.
> >>
> >> Michael Kay
> >> Saxonica
> >>
> >>> On 23 Jun 2022, at 11:45, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Folks,
> >>>
> >>> A book [1] that I am reading says something interesting about declarative languages (such as XML):
> >>>
> >>> Programming a scanner generator is an example of nonprocedural programming [i.e., declarative programming]. That is, unlike ordinary programming, which we call procedural, we do not tell a scanner generator "how" to scan but simply "what" we want scanned. This is a higher-level approach and in many ways a more natural one. ... Nonprocedural programming is most successful in limited domains, such as scanning, where the range of implementation decisions that must be automatically made is limited.
> >>>
> >>> That last sentence is interesting. I wonder how it applies to XML? XML is in a limited domain, right? XML's domain is the data formats domain, right? How is "the range of implementation decisions that must be automatically made" limited in XML?
> >>>
> >>> /Roger
> >>>
> >>> [1] "Crafting a Compiler with C" by Fischer and LeBlanc, p. 52
> >>>
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