[Xcb] XSLT

[Peter Harris]

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 4:56 AM, Alexander Mezin wrote:
>
> I've found that XSLT was used for generating code from XML
> descriptions some time ago. But now python script is used for this
> task. Could anybody explain, why had this switch been made?

It seemed like XSLT was a good fit; it's a domain specific language
for transforming XML.

Unfortunately, few of the people working on libxcb were experts in
XSLT, nor did most of us want to become expert in XSLT. The decision
was made to rewrite the generator in a language the libxcb authors
(and a greater percentage of the development community at large)
actually know.

> I'm working on C++ wrappers for XCB. If XSLT was a mistake, probably I
> shouldn't use it too. But right now XSLT looks like good solution for
> me.

IIRC the old libxcb XSLT generator used a non-standard extension to
the XSLT language in one place. I'm not an expert in XSLT, so I don't
know if that was necessary or just convenient.

I always encourage people to write XCB parsers in their favourite
language. For the libxcb authors, that is python. For me, that used to
be Perl and is currently Go. If XSLT is your favourite language, then
by all means use XSLT.

Peter Harris