ECMA: ECMA International (ECMA) is completing extensions to
the widely used ECMAScript standard, currently being updated to its
4th Edition. The enhancements known as E4X (ECMAScript for XML)
standardize the syntax and semantics of a general-purpose,
cross-platform, vendor-neutral set of programming language
extensions adding native XML support in ECMAScript.
John
Schneider documented some of the earlier work that influenced
this spec. I haven't kept close tabs on how it has evolved
since then, but I'm confident that
Tim Bray would approve.
Gordon
Weakliem: While I accept that a large part of the problem
with XML may be the popular APIs for dealing with it, I'm not sure
Tim's answers are on target. Tim does draw the parallel to socket
libraries in talking about interop. Sockets are still a pain in the
neck to code at the socket level, I just hardly ever have to do it
anymore. Maybe I'll feel the same about XML when I can substitute
"XML" for "socket".
What's good about sockets isn't that you have to program
at that level, it's that you can. The same thing
should be true about xml. The problem comes in when people
fool themselves into believing that xml should only be produced by
programs for consumption by other programs.
This weblog now supports the
comment API, with a
few additions.
Upon success, not only will a HTTP 200 status code be returned,
but the body will contain an updated RSS item with the link,
sanitized description, etc. Should there be any failures, I
will report back with a
HTTP 500
status code and a
SOAP
fault.
If the request comes in with a
SOAP
envelope and/or
rdf:RDF
element, I will respond in kind. That's just the kinda guy I
am. Note that neither of these are required in order to do
basic functions, and if not present, the response will be a clean
simple item with
no
wrappers or namespace declaration.
However, be forewarned that in the future there may be
additional functionality which may require SOAP and/or RDF.
The commitment is that basic functionality will not require such
wrappers.