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XML bloat in Java

below is an example from Yaffle, my report writer...

  • what you see below is an XML defined domain specific language
  • its readability is near zero, because XML is not a programming language
  • yet XML offers great declarative capability; Java generally does not... 
  • <CustomerReport>
	<reportTitle>Customer list</reportTitle>
	<outputClass>com.javazoid.report.format.HtmlJdbcTableFormatter</outputClass>
	
	<!-- example user-defined fields -->
	<userDefined>
		<downloadable>true</downloadable>
		<downloadFormatter>org.myorg.reports.MySubclassedCSVFormatter</downloadFormatter>
	</userDefined>

	<!-- no input parameters for this one -->
	<inputSpecification/>
		
		

	
	<!-- Define Date -->
	<dataSpecification>
		<type>jdbc</type>
		<connectionClass>com.javazoid.report.demo.HsqlConnection</connectionClass>
		<connectionMethod>getConnection</connectionMethod>
		<connectionMethodParameter/>	
		<sql>select * from customer order by lastname, firstname</sql>
		
	</dataSpecification>	
	


		
	<!-- Formatting -->
	<formatSpecification>
		<tableStyle>table</tableStyle>


		<rowStyles>
			<rowStyle>darkRow</rowStyle>	
			<rowStyle>lightRow</rowStyle>
				
		</rowStyles>
		
		<columns>
			
			<column>
				<title>Last Name</title>
				<widthPercent>20</widthPercent>
				<alignment>left</alignment>
				<dataName>LASTNAME</dataName>
			</column>
			
			<column>
				<title>First Name</title>
				<widthPercent>20</widthPercent>
				<alignment>left</alignment>
				<dataName>FIRSTNAME</dataName>
			</column>
			
			
			<column>
				<title>City</title>
				<widthPercent>20</widthPercent>
				<alignment>center</alignment>
				<dataName>CITY</dataName>
			</column>
		</columns>
			
		
		<summary>
			<summaryCaption>Count of Customers</summaryCaption>
			<summaryColumn>CITY</summaryColumn>
			<summaryFunction>com.javazoid.report.function.Count</summaryFunction>
			<summaryFormatPattern>#,###</summaryFormatPattern>	
		</summary>	
	</formatSpecification>
	
</CustomerReport>