It's True! We're So Lame!

So, apropos of nothing, an amusing excerpt:

XML is not the answer. It is not even the question ... "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use XML.” Now they have two problems."

Well, maybe not apropos of absolutely nothing. The article I snipped it from is moderately amusing (if unnecessarily abusive) for those <shudder>Java</shudder> developers among us who are currently checking out flavor-of-the-month languages like Python (underhanded dig at Python intended solely to offset Java abuse).

In our defense, though, I think there are plenty of Java developers out there just as appalled by the disgusting sprawl of XML as any other right-thinking human being -- things like this wouldn't exist if there weren't. That said, in some ways the situation is even worse than dirtSimple knows.

In Java, XML can be your savior because it lets you implement domain-specific languages and increase the flexibility of your application "without coding". In Java, avoiding coding is an advantage because coding means recompiling.

The sad fact is that you don't even always avoid a recompile. I mean, change the XML in your deployment descriptors and you're ejbc'ing again. Thank God I work for an organization enlightened enough that they never went down the entity bean path.

I mean, really...