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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

>> Because of this, they have a
>> syntax that is *very* easy to parse for a computer (as an example,
>> the XML grammar fits in about 200 lines, whereas the C grammar takes
>> over 400 lines (and that's *without* the preprocessor!)
> 
> No XML is better discussion (not sure if that is your argument or not),
> please, those lead nowhere. XML being easy to parse is not an argument for
> anybody who knows something about (programming) language theory - the
> complexity of a grammar* isn't defined by the name of the language after all ;-)
> 
	I don't understand your answer so I can't really answer to it, but
I'll try to clarify my post:

 - I wasn't advocating XML (although there are situations where it
is useful). Especially not for a 3D scene description language;

 - Nemesis was complaining about the poor readability and
human-friendliness of languages like XML and RIB. I simply pointed
out that these languages were not intended by their creators to be
manipulated by hand. As such, human-friendliness came as a poor
second to other criteria, like the ease of implementation which is a
prerequisite to wide acceptance. Unfortunately, a lot of people have
started advocating and using XML for situations it wasn't designed
for and fits poorly;

 - You say: "the complexity of a grammar isn't defined by the name
of the language". I especially don't understand what you mean by
that? I was using the number of lines of the BNF grammar as a
measurement for the complexity of the language. This shows that C is
much more complex than XML, especially if you include the
C-preprocessor in your estimation.

		Jerome
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