Timeline for In hindsight, is basing XAML on XML a mistake or a good approach?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
28 events
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Jul 13, 2017 at 8:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackSoftEng/status/885408592106446848 | ||
Jul 12, 2017 at 23:07 | history | protected | gnat | ||
Jul 12, 2017 at 22:11 | answer | added | John Henckel | timeline score: 0 | |
Apr 12, 2017 at 7:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ with https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/
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Apr 17, 2012 at 17:09 | comment | added | comingstorm | XML is a fine generic markup language. The mistake is when people persist in using it for things that aren't markup. | |
Apr 3, 2012 at 7:38 | answer | added | benzado | timeline score: 2 | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 15:27 | answer | added | Robert Harvey | timeline score: 4 | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 11:45 | comment | added | Juozas Kontvainis | @romkyns, revised question is much better. I'd still claim that not having to learn basics is the biggest advantage. Developers familiar with XML can focus on learning framework concepts, instead of having to learn syntax at the same time as framework concepts. | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 10:18 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @RobertHarvey I’ve updated the question quite a bit. Yes, the designers considered the benefits and drawbacks of XML and decided it’s worth it. I’m asking whether this decision was correct, because for me personally deriving the langauge from XML did not seem to bring any advantages. That’s what prompted the question. | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 10:13 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @Timwi I wasn’t talking about C# source code; question rewritten to clarify. | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 10:13 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @JuozasKontvainis If by "work" you mean "parse it in their tools" then yes. If you mean "write a UI described by it" then the familiar syntax might look like it helps, but realistically, you still need to learn what to put inside attributes (because that isn’t XML), and that is by far the hardest thing, in my personal experience. Learning a new syntax, especially if it’s simple and well-designed, is trivial, in my opinion. | |
Mar 15, 2012 at 10:10 | history | edited | Roman Starkov | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Major cleanup since it got reopened
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Mar 15, 2012 at 7:32 | comment | added | Juozas Kontvainis | I think that the biggest benefit of XAML is not that it can be parsed by XML parsers. It rather is that XAML is similar to XML, and most developers already know how to work with XML, and so learning curve is much less steep. | |
Mar 13, 2012 at 6:13 | history | reopened |
Roman Starkov Rachel Mason Wheeler Jim G. Jerry Coffin |
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Mar 12, 2012 at 21:25 | comment | added | Timwi | @RobertHarvey: You misunderstood what romkyns meant. You are thinking of serializers that can serialize .NET objects, he is talking about C# source code. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 20:41 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @RobertHarvey Shame that questions about whether that decision (XML benefits outweigh drawbacks) was erroneous are somehow unconstructive. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 20:19 | comment | added | Robert Harvey | They apparently figured that the benefits outweight the disadvantages. However, if that constrains your analysis, just remove that goal. C# can be represented in a multitude of different ways; there are serializers for XML, JSON and binary, and it would be simple enough to roll your own. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 20:18 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @RobertHarvey Aren’t you curious yourself why "Be XML" is a goal by itself? Why was it a goal for XAML but not, say, C#, which can surely also be represented as XML (shudder). | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:57 | comment | added | Robert Harvey | A custom-designed domain-specific language would have to fulfill the 7 goals for XAML | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:40 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @CFL_Jeff All XAML is valid XML, but not all XML is valid XAML, therefore XAML is a proper subset of XML. No? | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:38 | comment | added | Roman Starkov | @RobertHarvey I mentioned a "custom-designed domain-specific language" as an alternative. XML is general enough to represent anything, but we build custom languages for many things. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:32 | comment | added | yannis | This question is being discussed on Meta. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:26 | comment | added | CFL_Jeff | XAML might not be as much of a subset of XML as you think. Check out the "Differences between XML and XAML" paragraph here: itorian.com/articles/silverlight/tutorial/… | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 19:19 | history | closed |
Robert Harvey gnat Karl Bielefeldt yannis |
not constructive | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 18:57 | comment | added | user16764 | XAML is not without counterparts, you know. XUL, Glade and QML are all based around the same idea. I think you're singling XAML out unfairly. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 18:42 | comment | added | Robert Harvey | What do you propose as an alternative? Any discussion about the suitability of a particular technology would have to address suitable replacement technologies. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 18:27 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | Yes, it can be parsed by an XML parser, but not meaningfully / completely. For instance, it uses string attributes to define data sources and property mappings. | |
Mar 12, 2012 at 18:24 | history | asked | Roman Starkov | CC BY-SA 3.0 |