Re^9: Plack Middleware aXML

[Logicus]

in reply to Re^8: Plack Middleware aXML
in thread Plack Middleware aXML

not a fair comparison..

It's difficult to find a fair comparison when we are talking about such different paradigms. I'm not trying to replace Perl's syntax, so much as wrap it in a container which makes it easier and quicker to assemble batches of complex imperative statements using a simple declarative syntax.

>>SLOC

Sometimes there is little difference, and sometimes you do get several orders of magnitude advantage. For instance on the old system there was a plugin called aJAXchat (I haven't got round to porting it to the new one yet), which allows for any page of any project to instantly include an ajax powered chatroom by simply adding this :

  <aJAXchat>path/to/storefile</aJAXchat>

The more abstract you get with the tags and their meanings the greater the advantage you gain. Some of the plugins are hundreds of lines of code, and can be accessed, and layered with the other plugins to create even greater complexity. I.E ;

 
  (debug)<aJAXchat>path/to/storefile</aJAXchat>(/debug)

Now suddenly the chat room only appears if the debug flag is set... why you would want to do that is beyond me, but the principle is sound.

Your right when you say that someone would have to write the Perl code anyway to give the tags their meanings, but once written that tag then becomes a reusable package which as I mentioned can be used in concert with all the other packages. Write once, use many.

  (loggedin)
    <aJAXchat>rooms/<qd>roomname</qd></aJAXchat>
  (/loggedin)

>>syntax checking or highlighting, debugging, testing.

When your confident, as I am, that the lower level of the system is bug free (especially the older version), then you find that the only place bugs exist is at the document level, and nearly always its because you've left out the / from the end tag or something silly like that. The very nature of the syntax and the way it reuses batches of pre-written and well tested code lends itself to coding with very few bugs. With that in mind, consider then that a lot of the testing and debugging tools needed for the full blown complexity of Perl are just not needed to check if an aXML document has the correct syntax.

As for saying Perl has advantage over aXML due to maturity, that's still thinking of aXML as being some sort of rival or equal to perl, it isn't, it's just an abstraction layer which implements a higher order and makes for quick and easy construction of statements which require a lot less brain power to build and debug than the Perl code which powers it.

security hole... yeh I remembered that when I was typing it but I was just like bleh, its only a silly little incomplete example anyway.

[Logicus]

Also it will be nice at some point when I have the time, to get down to writing an editor for it or extending something like Padre.

I have some ideas in mind for instance

(debug)<dump>$foo</dump>(/inc)

The syntax highlighter (and checker) would not need to know anything about what the tags actually do, all it needs to understand is the bracket schema.

Also, I had in mind the ability to run a tag in isolation so you can see what it returns, and possibly if the editor is smart enough it could add a + sign next to things like the <inc> tag so you can see the result of including the given path. I.E;

(inc)path/to/file(/inc)+

Then when you click on the + sign the sub "inc" gets run, loads the file with the given path, and displays its results inline;

(inc)
here is the file you requested
(/inc)-

You could then edit the loaded file in place, and when you click the - the editor saves both files. and returns the display to how it looked at the start. This gives the advantage that you can be sure your path statement is correct, you can create and edit a new file by typing in the path and clicking the plus sign, and you don't need to worry about saving the files or having multiple windows or tabs open with different files to switch between them.

The sub file can also contain another nested heirarchy of tags, including more statements to include, like russian dolls.

When your building a new system you open the editor and start by typing :

(use)(qd)action(/qd)(/use)+

Then you give the editor a request so that the value of action is known, click the + and start writing that action, when your done with that action you give the editor another request and start writing the next action and so on.

I will eventually get round to writing this, but I only have one pair of hands and right now I have significantly more important tasks to complete so I can get out of having to visit the jobcenter twice monthly to beg for my survival pittance.

[Logicus]

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <link href="/css/main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
    <title><conf>sitetitle</conf></title>
  </head>
  <body>

    <div id="navigation"> (inc)common/welcome(notloggedin)guest(/notloggedin)(/inc)</div>

    <div id="content">(inc)actions/(qd)action(/qd)/main(/inc)</div>

 </body>
</html>