Modern Languages vs the Ancient... (Was Metaprogramming)

[Joe Armstrong (TN/EAB)]

The other day I found an old withered parchment, it had been written
long ago
in a faded blue ink, it was difficulty to read, but with a little
difficulty I just managed

Here what I manged to read ...

<<

... virtual XML is an Erlang term that can be mapped 1:1 onto XML.

   On input convert XML to VXML - internally use VXML.

   On output:

	 If a novice programmer walks by and wants to see
       what you're doing transform VXML to XML. 

       If a master programmer walks by show them the VXML.

       If a project manager walks by smile, tell them the project will
take
       another 3 months, if pressed show them the vxml and say
	 "there's still a lot of work to be done ..." three month later 
       show them the xml
>>
    

/Joe




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED 
> [mailto:owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED] On Behalf Of Ulf Wiger
> Sent: den 24 augusti 2006 09:16
> To: Rudolph van Graan; Erlang-Questions Mailing List
> Subject: Re: Modern Languages vs the Ancient... (Was Metaprogramming)
> 
> Den 2006-08-24 06:14:28 skrev Rudolph van Graan 
> <rvg@REDACTED>:
> 
> > It looks to me as though they have now managed to invent a (bad) 
> > scripting language sitting above Java essentially imitating what we 
> > had in ASP/JSP/VB ten years ago, but far worse because XML is not a 
> > language but a data structure...
> 
> Indeed. This is also easy to sell to management et al, since 
> it's XML...
> Now, when you venture into using XML as a "programming 
> language", you will run head-on into the horribly sad state 
> of XML script debugging, which, presumably noone bothered to 
> develop tools for before jumping into product development.
> 
> If you're going to write scripts in XML, here's a suggestion:
> 
> Map the erlang abstract form into XML 1-to-1. Then you will 
> have Distributed XML, highly concurrent, and with good fault 
> tolerance.
> You can also write an error reporting gen_event handler that 
> spits out crash reports in XML format too. You will certainly 
> be rewarded with the kingdom and half a horse, and your 
> scripting language will become more popular than Erlang ever was. (:
> 
> Ulf W
> --
> Ulf Wiger
>