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...)

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(SchemeLanguage translation moved to XmlIsaPoorCopyOfEssExpressions)

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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.

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

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See: ColdFusionLanguage, XsltLanguage

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CategoryXml CategoryProgrammingLanguage