> > As a practitioner, the main trap/pitfall of Agile> software> > development is thinking about Agile instead of about> the> > specific situation> > So, if you have a methodology you aren't supposed to be> thinking about, how does that differ from having no> methodology at all? Other than the fact that it's hard to> sell books about nothing,...

> 2. Successful Agile development presupposes that team> members will all act like adults. That's a euphemism for> being competent and professional.My eyes bulged out of my head a little when I read this. But I have one nit. Competent and professional are necessary requirements but acting like an adult in the more general sense is also...

> The point of this discussion is how version control and> undo could be merged, and using a structured format would> help.But you haven't shown that. Your only argument is that some formats are ambiguous. I think most everyone agrees that ambiguous formats are bad. But you can use a structured format and still have ambiguous meaning. For...

> > But I will answer the above. Mixed-content elements> are> > those that contain both text and elements. They are> > useful in markup for documents e.g.:> > The quick brown fox jumped over the> > lazy brown dog> > This is why when you use something like DOM or SAX you> > need to account for multiple text nodes in an element.> > For some...

> You did not show any features that are problematic for> that purpose though. Again, I am asking you, for the 3rd> time: what features of XML has caused you problems?I can't be bothered to repeat myself over and over again. Go back and read my previous responses.

> it took people like john resig, of jQuery fame, to show> the world that you can, in 80% of the time, get away with> `$('#foo')`, `$('.bar')` and friends. in may experience,> that is also 80% of what you ever wanted to do with XML.> the simplicity, beauty, and usefulness of his design> stands in a shockingly stark contrast to the immense heap>...

> Case in point: Java GUI code. Setting up a dialog in Swing> with, let's say, 50 controls is about 10 pages long. The> same code could be written in perhaps 2 pages if Java> provided the way to write a GUI dsl, analogous to xml or> html.The really sad thing is that the strength of Swing is in building guis dynamically. The upshot is that it's...

> Code critiquing is subjective though. There's no getting> around that. It's the nature of writing code that there's> an infinite number of good ways to write a non-trivial> piece of code and an infinite number of ways to write bad> code. There are things about judging code that are subjective but there are also a lot of important things that...

> It's funny that programmer posts of this thread nature are> always about the other guy that sucks.Not really. This you are talking about the equivalent self-selected survey. Few people think they suck even if they do. And if you truly suck and know it, you are unlikely to read programming articles and much less so to post responses about how...

> What do you mean 'mixed-content'?I'm kind of bored with this discussion and there's no way you will convince me that XML is a good format for code. I have too much experience with XML. Likewise, you seem set in your belief that it is an improvement over the more classic structured language approach.But I will answer the above. Mixed-content...

> > Baseball games are very linear.> > So are all sorts of things that happen in time.> > > The above is basically a shorthand for record keeping.> > That's what businesses do. They keep records. Businesses> such as sports teams keep records.That's one thing businesses do. It's not the kind of thing that we are talking about, though. Most...

> > I've seen some of the worst code when all of what you> are> > talking about existed. The problem is that bad> > programmers were doing the oversight. I've actually> seen> > reasonably good code get worse because of process. A> lot> > of times the people in the positions of authority are> the> > least able to> > Generally, the good...

> Our users are doing something narrowly focused with> knowledge only they have and a tool that prevents them> from doing any damage. They can make logic errors but not> system ones. They went through extensive tests using a> test document we helped them write.> > Slightly off topic but my observation from being in the> field since 1992 is...

> The DSL of baseball/softball was not invented by a U.S.> Naval officer at Remington Rand, or Joe Schmoe with a> spreadsheet, or Martin Fowler with a copy of UML> Distilled, or a Ruby programmer from Denmark, or the> inventor of wikis. ;-) It was largely invented in the 19th> century by a newspaper reporter--a language expert and> baseball...

> Requiring developers to think isn't the problem.> Accepting their work into the system without a proper> r review process is. It's always a recipe for disaster.> Even the best of programmers have have bad days or have> e gaps in their abilities that they're not aware of. > > A bad code base is a symptom of lack of quality control,> lack of...