[Dev] XML for CPIA

[Brendan O'Connor]

On Aug 10, 2005, at 11:28 AM, John Anderson wrote:

>>> - The syntax isn't better: while it might be familiar to HTML  
>>> programmers just because it's XML, it isn't simpler or terser  
>>> than the equivalent Python code given in the example.
>>>
>> I'm not quite sure I understand the simpler/terser argument.
>> It is actually terser: "brief and to the point" - there is less to  
>> type/read. No need to refer to .update, the current parcel in each  
>> element declaration.
>> It is actually simpler: there are no redundant attributes like  
>> blockName or parcel name and you don't have to explicitly declare  
>> childrenBlocks.
> The similarity to HTML may not buy you much because using CPIA  
> requires you understand a lot of concepts that are very different  
> from familiar HTML

HTML's way more mundane than CPIA, but sometimes you really want to  
support the mundane tasks well: e.g. laying out widgets in a  
hierarchy.  I've found such tasks difficult in CPIA (where,  
depressingly, they were infinitely easier in html/javascript, though  
in many ways that system is less sophisticated.  I couldn't have  
written a chandler ui mockup in CPIA in two days time, though i did  
in dhtml.)

Though, most of my difficulties related to how cpia relates to the  
repository and interfaces with wx, so maybe cpia xml wouldn't solve  
them.  From my experience, the most important part of cpia to fix is wx!

Brendan