Re: [rgui-dev] API Time

[Tom Sawyer]

On Fri, 2002-08-23 at 12:39, Massimiliano Mirra wrote:
> I've not been following YAML closely, but I was wondering whether it
> could be of help.  I gather YAML produces a readable translation of an
> object which can also be translated back into an object.  If I'm
> mistaken, disregard the next paragraph. :-)
> 
> We wouldn't have an either/or scenario.  An interface could be written
> in YAML and marshalled into an InterfaceDescription at runtime, as
> well as created at runtime and then written in YAML format.

yes, this is an advantage of yaml. it is ready made for serialization
and thus we could have both worlds farily easily. of course, this can be
done with XML too, but it takes a good bit more work and coding to
translate XML into InterfaceDescription and vice-versa. something to
consider.

> I admit some reluctancy to consider XML.  I'd like to imagine a GUI by
> just looking at its description, and it's hard with XML where
> everything soon becomes flooded with tags.

i agree. in my past work with xml, i had taken a very different approach
to tag names. rather then using definite tag names, i made the tag names
variable. in other words, instead of say:

  <field name="myaddress">

i would just use

  <myaddress>

i don't think it went over too well though :-(

~transami