Split the library #2
Description
Right now the library does two things implicitly:
- parse an XML tree looking for parametric attributes, returning the so-called
VirtualTree; - update the XML tree with new calculations.
I’d like to split the two steps into two separate libraries – a parser and a patcher. They’d communicate using a separately-versioned AST format. Many other low-level libs have gone this way and succeeded (http://npm.im/commonmark, http://npm.im/virtual-dom, http://mdast.js.org/).
We get lots of benefits:
👍 The parser can take any form of XML (for example, from a saved SVG file), generate an AST and pass it over to any other patcher (for example, a virtual-dom-based one).
👍 The AST can be precompiled and loaded separately as a JS file. That would radically boost performance for complicated stuff.
👍 The patcher can take an AST generated by another parser (for example, by some non-JS plugin for Inkscape).
👍 The API will be explicit, without overloading – easier to document and understand.
I see one tradeoff there however:
👎 The learning curve will be higher. Non-programmers (designers, makers, etc) probably won’t like the API.
Perhaps I’ll leave the API as it for now – and work on the parser and generator separately. When the low-level stuff is ready, I’ll wire it up with this lib. The API here will keep its implicit, jQuery-like spirit.
I’m still open to other ideas though!