Re: [xml-dev] Create a special purpose programming language, in XML, using state transitions

From
Peter Hunsberger <>
To
David Lee <>
Date
2013-10-18T13:56:38Z
ID
<CAKsvBp-6moeJ_ZRaxMe5=>
Thread
Re: [xml-dev] Create a special purpose programming language, in XML, using state transitions
David, 

to the extent your assertion is true (which I'm pretty much neutral on) then any method declaration and subsequent call of that method is potentially a GOTO.  Apply-templates with a wild card is no worse than a language that supports polymorphism requiring you to sort through 8 different method signatures to figure out which one is the best match for a given call... 

Peter Hunsberger


On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 8:50 AM, David Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
---- Micheal Kay
State machines are essentially flowcharts: programming with GOTOs.
--------

I am seriously curious.  Could you (or anyone) explain the fundamental difference between
state machines, GOTO's and XSLT ?

To my thinking (perhaps why  I struggle with XSLT) ... an <apply-templates> is essentially a GOTO
with the current state (the current context)  as input and possibly a 1 or more target states.   and a <template> is a state description.   The pattern matching ,to me, just adds to the difficulty of understanding the GOTO's ... as it makes
understanding what the target of the GOTO harder to comprehend (because it's really a function of the current state,
which can be quite subtle).

So what am I seeing wrong here ?  Maybe if I understood my misconception I would do better at XLST.

-David

----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
[email protected]
http://www.xmlsh.org





_______________________________________________________________________

XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.

[Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
Or unsubscribe: [email protected]
subscribe: [email protected]
List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php