[boost] Re: Re: GUI library - another one

From: Max Motovilov (max_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-03-03 12:04:33

"Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:00ac01c4013e$6d63e580$1d00a8c0_at_pdimov2...

> That a XML resource description is needed almost goes without saying, but
> why interpret or compile it? The GUI library should just be able to
> deserialize its objects from such an XML file (or any other archive, for
> that matter).
>
>     widget w = create_widget("description.xml");

That is an option, but I'd have to think for a while to offer a coherent
theory why it may not be sufficient. In the meanwhile, I'll just name a
capability that can be trivially implemented with a centralized run-time
schema repository as opposed to a decentralized collection of objects
created by de-serialization of such schema: support for the "ID" tag. That
is, being able to write:

list_widget lw = find_named_widget( "ListOfNames" );

or something to the same effect. Doing it as:

list_widget lw = root->find( "EmployeeData" )->find(
"PersonalDataPage" )->find( "ListOfNames" );

doesn't cut it because the actual hierarchy of windows may be an
implementation detail determined by look-and-feel requirements and totally
irrelevant to the code in question. Of course, the named objects can
register themselves in a centralized directory, but this already places us
on the path of intepreting at least _some_ information contained in the
original schema...

...Max...