Xml Programming Language

There seems to be some effort to make XmlLanguage into a ProgrammingLanguage (ExtensibleStylesheetLanguage, XsltLanguage, JavaServerPages-tags). XML isn't a programming language at all; it is a MarkupLanguage for making other markup languages. Please note:

XML is a transport for moving data around.

XML is not a programming language, period.

One could implement a programming language as an XML application, however. Whether this is smart is debatable; XML syntax, while designed to be human-readable and editable, is a pain to type and ugly to read. However, this doesn't make XML itself a programming language any more than it makes ASCII (or UniCode) text a programming language. (Or EssExpressions for that matter...)


(SchemeLanguage translation moved to XmlIsaPoorCopyOfEssExpressions)


It seems to me that XML would work OK for a programming language. I don't see what couldn't be expressed. For instance:

 Dim x As Variant
 For Each x in Form.Fields
       Print x+5
       If x = "a" Then 
            Exit For
       Else
            Print "hi"
       End If
 Next
could be
 <dim name="x" type="variant" />

<foreach item=x container=Form.Fields> <print expression="x+5" /> <if expression="x='a'"> <exitfor /> </if> <if expression="x<>'a'"> <print expression="hi" /> </if> </foreach>
OK. That is clunky. However, it would lend itself to the IDE helping the programmer more. So, it could have value there. However, PythonLanguage is easy enough to parse that I have trouble seeing why we shouldn't use it instead of inventing something that can't be typed easily by humans just to allow reusing our existing XML parsers.


Wonderful, now write an Xsd parser for CeeSharp to determine if the Xml program will compile :)


See: ColdFusionLanguage, XsltLanguage


CategoryXml CategoryProgrammingLanguage


EditText of this page (last edited March 28, 2014) or FindPage with title or text search