Joerg Heinicke wrote:
Daniel Fagerstrom <danielf <at> nada.kth.se> writes:
<xyz>
<jx:strip-whitespace>
${abc.name}
<nested-tag><jx:preserve-whitespace> ${abc.description}
</jx:preserve-whitespace></nested-tag>
</jx:strip-whitespace>
</xyz>
This looks very awful. Not that I need this feature, but ...
And that is the issue, do we want to complicate the template framework
with ad hoc constructions that few needs?
After have spending much more effort than I would have liked in
re-architecturing JXTG I'm very reluctant in allowing features that
complicates the framework. It is built for having elements as
instructions not attributes. We could add the possibility to have
attributes as instructions as well, but in that it should be a general
purpose addition, not a hack for a single attribute instruction.
Might be that it is awful, but that goes for the rest of JXTG as well
(or any XML language), it is still not a reason to complicate life for
users by mixing attribute and element syntax. Furthermore, I doubt that
what you do above is a common use case.
I don't think that the above syntax complicates users' life in comparison to
attribute syntax. Just compare it to namespace declaration in XML:
<element xmlns="myNamespace">
<element xmlns="yourNamespace">
<element xmlns="someonesElseNamespace">
<element/>
</element>
</element>
</element>
Now imagine this one with namespace elements ...
If there is a clear separation between concerns (i.e. mapping elements to
instructions and attributes to what Leszek called processing directives (btw,
XML also knows 'processing instructions')) I see no problems using attributes.
I don't see any clear separation of concern in this case. Processing
instructions in XML is info about how the whole document should be
processed, not something at the element level.
/Daniel
