Re: ease of use proposal - adding 'from' attribute to step to define connection

On Wed, 2014-11-26 at 20:13 +0100, James Fuller wrote:
> Its an interesting thought  (FWIW- originally I also was toying with
> things like mystep#result so its nice to here confirmation from a 2nd
> pair of eyes).
> 
> I also like result@mystep ... and from my pov still fits in with the
> scope of change being discussed.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to shortcuts such as this (I'd rather
they be handled by tools). But defining a particular microsyntax for
such things seems to me a significant (and unnecessary) departure from
traditional XML idiom.

Especially so, considering that the venerable XML id/idref idiom exactly
meets the need here (for defining connections), except for the
well-intentioned but problematic notion of default ports, which need no
explicit instance representation.

Nevertheless, please consider defining an xlink representation of
connections as a generalization of the current connection syntax. This
which would allow in simple cases an id/idref type connection between
ports, and perhaps through some simple conventions the connection of
multiple inputs and outputs through default ports.

Regards,
--Paul


> J
> 
> 
> On 26 November 2014 at 19:59, Florent Georges <fgeorges@fgeorges.org> wrote:
> > On 26 November 2014 at 18:01, Jim Fuller wrote:
> >
> >   Hi,
> >
> >>   <p:identity name="mystep"/>
> >>   <p:wrap-sequence .../>
> >>   <p:count from="mystep"/>
> >
> >> [...]
> >> Which is semantically equivalent to the following pipeline.
> >
> >>   <p:identity name="mystep"/>
> >>   <p:wrap-sequence .../>
> >>   <p:count>
> >>     <p:input port="source">
> >>       <p:pipe step="mystep" port="result"/>
> >>     </p:input>
> >
> >   I like the idea.  But it is limited to primary ports.  What about
> > something like the following, allowing to give the port as well
> > (indeed still using the primary port if not explicit):
> >
> >     <p:count from="result@mystep"/>
> >
> >   Because both names are NCNames, we could use "mystep:result" as
> > well, but it would then look too much like a QName, and people would
> > wonder why "mystep" prefix is not declared.  I liked "mystep.result"
> > but "." is a legitimate character in an NCName. I like "mystep→result"
> > as well, but I do not think the IT world is  ready yet for that in
> > 2015.
> >
> >   I think that from="result@mystep" reads quite easy in plain English.
> >
> >   Regards,
> >
> > --
> > Florent Georges
> > http://fgeorges.org/
> > http://h2oconsulting.be/
>

Received on Monday, 1 December 2014 03:09:31 UTC