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I remember a meeting where a consultant from an MCP excitedly told our mutual client that the XP in the upcoming version of Windows stood for 'XML Protocol.' M

I remember a meeting where a consultant from an MCP excitedly told our mutual client that the XP in the upcoming version of Windows stood for 'XML Protocol.' More innocent times.

adamgordonbell 4y ago
Scala had XML literals as part of the language! Apparently Philip Wadler was the person who told them needed it, because the future was XML. ( Walder is big Haskell/PL person)
- tuukkah 4y ago
  Was it far from JSX?
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    It was almost literally JSX (except with Scala syntax instead of Javascript, of course). An XML literal in Scala would have been: // XML literals (to be dropped) val mails1 = for (from, to, heading, body) <- todoList yield <message> <from>{from}</from><to>{to}</to> <heading>{heading}</heading><body>{body}</body> </message> println(mails1) This was replaced with "XML string interpolation", which // XML string interpolation val mails2 = for (from, to, heading, body) <- todoList yield xml""" <message> <from>${from}</from><to>${to}</to> <heading>${heading}</heading><body>${body}</body> </message>""" println(mails2)
- bryik 4y ago
  That's surprising! Wasn't it Philip Wadler who said "The essence of XML is this: the problem it solves is not hard, and it does not solve the problem well." http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  VB.NET still has them. I remember doing a project with an XML database (ugh) back in college when the version with the literals was released. I was ecstatic.
- tracker1 4y ago
  ActionScript 3 as well as the E4X support in Mozilla's Browser+JS/XUL engine for a while (removed now afaik). Around that time it was pretty nice passing around XML, as I was forced to work with VB.Net which also had an XML literal syntax on the backend and Flash/AS3 on the UI. I had built a POC with E4X that was VERY similar to React/Redux over a decade before React, but the other browser vendors didn't have it... At the time IE and Chrome were shifting towards JSON.
- taeric 4y ago
  The irony, to me, is how it is viewed as a bit of a mistake that they had XML in Scala. Hard to square that with how instrumental JSX was in getting some of the modern JavaScript frameworks as far as it has.
  - hajile 4y ago
    If the web spec had a JSON analog for HTML, I think you'd see a lot less love for JSX.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Maybe? Though, I suspect JSX just got lucky with when it got popular. There were plenty of mixed HTML/Script things in the past. Most of them met a lot of resistance.
lowercased 4y ago
I had a power strip which had "works with windows 95" on the packaging box.
- dylan604 4y ago
  This is just an example of how marketing knows nothing about the products they are marketing, or are just flat out snake oil sales. Like packaging for bacon exclaiming "gluten free"
  - recursive 4y ago
    I mean... but it is? They're not wrong. Either the marketing works or it doesn't, but it's not false. If it works, then it's good marketing. If it doesn't, then the marketers don't know their market.
    - Joker_vD 4y ago
      Ah yes, "this cereal is asbestos-free!" kind of marketing. It's on the same page with non-GMO salt.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Exactly. It doesn't really matter that the claim is technically true, it just has no bearing whatsoever on the product itself.
  - print_goto_ten 4y ago
    >This is just an example of how marketing knows nothing about the products they are marketing Or it is a question that people who are not familiar with technology will ask frequently and makes no sense to people who are.
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
      I use bing, and tell people to 'bing it' sometimes (instead of 'google it'). I had a family member ask "will bing work with my yahoo?" So... I know those words individually, but... man... together, in that order... I don't know how to respond. I think I said something like "don't worry about it - it's not that big a deal" and left it at that.

I remember a meeting where a consultant from an MCP excitedly told our mutual client that the XP in the upcoming version of Windows stood for 'XML Protocol.' More innocent times.

adamgordonbell 4y ago

Scala had XML literals as part of the language! Apparently Philip Wadler was the person who told them needed it, because the future was XML. ( Walder is big Haskell/PL person)

tuukkah 4y ago
Was it far from JSX?
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  It was almost literally JSX (except with Scala syntax instead of Javascript, of course). An XML literal in Scala would have been: // XML literals (to be dropped) val mails1 = for (from, to, heading, body) <- todoList yield <message> <from>{from}</from><to>{to}</to> <heading>{heading}</heading><body>{body}</body> </message> println(mails1) This was replaced with "XML string interpolation", which // XML string interpolation val mails2 = for (from, to, heading, body) <- todoList yield xml""" <message> <from>${from}</from><to>${to}</to> <heading>${heading}</heading><body>${body}</body> </message>""" println(mails2)
bryik 4y ago
That's surprising! Wasn't it Philip Wadler who said "The essence of XML is this: the problem it solves is not hard, and it does not solve the problem well." http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/
orthoxerox 4y ago
VB.NET still has them. I remember doing a project with an XML database (ugh) back in college when the version with the literals was released. I was ecstatic.
tracker1 4y ago
ActionScript 3 as well as the E4X support in Mozilla's Browser+JS/XUL engine for a while (removed now afaik). Around that time it was pretty nice passing around XML, as I was forced to work with VB.Net which also had an XML literal syntax on the backend and Flash/AS3 on the UI. I had built a POC with E4X that was VERY similar to React/Redux over a decade before React, but the other browser vendors didn't have it... At the time IE and Chrome were shifting towards JSON.
taeric 4y ago
The irony, to me, is how it is viewed as a bit of a mistake that they had XML in Scala. Hard to square that with how instrumental JSX was in getting some of the modern JavaScript frameworks as far as it has.
- hajile 4y ago
  If the web spec had a JSON analog for HTML, I think you'd see a lot less love for JSX.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Maybe? Though, I suspect JSX just got lucky with when it got popular. There were plenty of mixed HTML/Script things in the past. Most of them met a lot of resistance.

lowercased 4y ago

I had a power strip which had "works with windows 95" on the packaging box.

dylan604 4y ago
This is just an example of how marketing knows nothing about the products they are marketing, or are just flat out snake oil sales. Like packaging for bacon exclaiming "gluten free"
- recursive 4y ago
  I mean... but it is? They're not wrong. Either the marketing works or it doesn't, but it's not false. If it works, then it's good marketing. If it doesn't, then the marketers don't know their market.
  - Joker_vD 4y ago
    Ah yes, "this cereal is asbestos-free!" kind of marketing. It's on the same page with non-GMO salt.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Exactly. It doesn't really matter that the claim is technically true, it just has no bearing whatsoever on the product itself.
- print_goto_ten 4y ago
  >This is just an example of how marketing knows nothing about the products they are marketing Or it is a question that people who are not familiar with technology will ask frequently and makes no sense to people who are.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    I use bing, and tell people to 'bing it' sometimes (instead of 'google it'). I had a family member ask "will bing work with my yahoo?" So... I know those words individually, but... man... together, in that order... I don't know how to respond. I think I said something like "don't worry about it - it's not that big a deal" and left it at that.