GDB/XMI (XML Machine Interface)

[Felix Lee]

Chris Friesen <gdb001@speakeasy.net>:
> The code is an implementation that doesn't convey the objectives or 
> intent. Is that behavior a bug or feature in the code?

if a programmer isn't going to explain it in the code, why expect
them to explain it in a spec?  having a separate spec is like
removing comments from the source and putting them in a different
file, which introduces maintenance problems.  there's more chance
of code and description being in sync if they're "near" each
other, and extraction can be automated.

well, a spec is probably more closely related to testcases than
to implementation.  so perhaps in an ideal world, an interface
would be a single document that's easy to read, easy to parse,
and easy to test against.

(it's not clear to me that an xml dtd is any of those attributes,
but I don't have a strong objection to it.)
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