XML API specification

[Len Bullard]

Gavin Nicol wrote:
> 
> >>This kind of argument went on in VRML and was wisely rejected.
> >>The commitment to a CORBA IDL is a commitment to a syntax for the spec
> >>and not a lot else.
> >
> >If Gavin's information is correct (and I assume it to be so) this is false.
> >IDL means that we get language-specific bindings for several languages
> >including Java and C++, simply by applyiing an automated tool. So there are
> >concrete technical advantages to using IDL, though we must apply those
> >tools for the programmers, so that I don't have to find an IDL tool to use
> >XML with my Java codebase.
> 
> JAVA, C, C++, ADA (and if you use ILU, a whole lot more)

Again, "What it means to the spec".  Available tools are the next level.
Groves to IDL to Whatever is still the food chain.  Committing directly 
to Java is what is wrong in the previous posted suggestion.  As David 
says, "we are in raging agreement".  Unless we leave the API adaptible 
to other languages, we lose too many well-known and practiced
optimization 
advantages.   So, C, C++, yes even ADA, are still possibilities.

> >> The commitment to JAVA for implementation
> >>is only a commitment to a slow language.
> >
> >Again, verifiably false. There is no reason that native-code Java compilers
> >cannot exist. Languages aren't slow -- implementations are. Something you
> >learn sometime in your first 2 years of college...
> 
> There is already an i86 native code compiler, and I hear that the
> FSF is working on incorporating JAVA into GCC.

Glad to hear it.  Have you ever read the FAR and its regulations for 
using commercial software?  These don't matter to academic development 
efforts, but to the commercial software business they are of some 
importance.  So, forgive me if I keep pushing toward the commercial 
requirements.  Java is fine.  FSF is food for the hungry.  
There are alternatives that must be considered.

IDL looks to be the best candidate for the implementors.  I think a
grove 
definition provides good spec language and makes it easier to align XML 
with the Technical Corrigendums from WG8.  Let each party read the 
verbiage that works best for them.

len

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