On Sun, 26 Jan 2014 08:03:18 +0200, Frank Millman wrote: > I do not expect anyone to read or edit the XML - it is just a storage > format. I am sure it could be done in JSON or YAML as well.
But that's not what you originally said. You stated: "here is how I would write your simple 'About' box" and compared your XML to actual code written by Chris. As I said in my previous post, if the XML is intended as a purely internal document, written by and read by your application, it's not so bad. (But then XML is intended for document *exchange*, i.e. from one application to another. If your XML is just used *internally*, with no interchange needed, why not use a more efficient internal format? XML's strength is that it is a well-known standard that allows application A to interchange documents with application B. But it's weaknesses include, it is neither efficient like a custom-designed binary format, not human-editable. It seems to me that if I were in your position, I would have the GUI designer generate source code in some language directly, rather than XML. Ah, wait! An idea strikes... if your GUI designer generates XML, you could then have a plug-in system to convert the XML to source code in whatever languages the plug-in supports. So that's a possible good use for XML as an intermediate language. > One objective is to make it easy for non-programmers to modify forms and > create new ones. I showed a screenshot earlier that illustrated a > 'button' definition. The idea of drag-and-drop GUI designers is hardly new. I was using one back in 1986 or '88, Apple's Hypercard. Now that was a user-friendly programming language/environment/toolkit. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
