[Laszlo-dev] new language feature proposal: <include type="script" .../>

[P T Withington]

Here's the problem:  We already have <script href="">.  Due to the  
magic queued instantiation scheme we have for our nodes, the script  
node has to have a kludge so that its contents get executed in  
lexical order.  This is usually what LZX programmers expect.

In the case Henry is talking about, we don't want no stinkin' queued  
instantiation.  We just want to define a bunch of Javascript that  
will be loaded when our library gets loaded.

We can't used <script type="Javascript"> to help, since that is the  
only type we support anyways.

So, I really do think Henry is right.  This is an <include>, but it  
is not an include of LZX it is an include of Javascript, and we want  
the Javascript includes to just go straight through to the script  
compiler, with no funny LZX instantiation semantics.

[Another approach, which Henry and I discussed but dismissed is to  
examine whether we still need the magic instantiation semantics, or  
whether we need as many.  In particular, do we really want user- 
defined classes to be queued for instantiation?  This seemed like too  
big a change to tackle at this point.]

On 2007-01-16, at 12:22 EST, Jim Grandy wrote:

> Wouldn't <script href=""> be more descriptive, and more in line  
> with what other markup languages do?
>
> On Jan 16, 2007, at 8:21 AM, Henry Minsky wrote:
>
>> There's some code which Pablo wrote for the RPC libraries which  
>> basically just wants to include
>> straight javascript code, in the same way that the LFC is written.
>>
>> He had to wrap these files in <library><script> tags to get them  
>> to work with <include> in LZX.
>>
>> I propose an option to <include> which is a "type=script"  
>> attribute. If the tag compiler encounters this, it
>> will just inline the contents of the included file directly at the  
>> top level, just like LFC code.
>>
>> So the library code which declares the <javarpc> class would say,  
>> for example
>>
>> javarpc.lzx:
>>
>> <library>
>>
>>     <include href="rpc/rpc.lzx" />
>>     <include href="rpc/library/javarpc.js" type="script" />
>>
>> And the javarpc.js file is straight javascript.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Henry Minsky
>> Software Architect
>> hminsky at laszlosystems.com
>>
>