Re: Code generation or forms?

Hugh Winkler wrote:

> Natural language instructions are OK when the intelligent agent is expected
> to be a human operating a browser or other user agent. If you had an XML
> form you could define a description tag or attribute that would do the trick
> -- just imagine WADL like <parameter name="appid" type="xsd:string"
> required="true" description="The application id" />. In a forms language
> this description is not a "nice to have"; it's essential so that a client
> program can display it to the user. In a code generation scenario, this
> description is optional, or need not be formalized, since it's only the
> programmer, reading the service documentation at design time, who needs to
> understand the meanings of the parameters.

Why is it optional for code generation? Knowledge of type and 
optionality of arguments are precisely the kind of data that I'd expect 
to have to generate useful code. E.g. so I could throw an exception if a 
request is sent without required parameters, or to generate type-safe
methods.

Cheers,

L.

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