[Bf-committers] Declarative UI Experiment

[Jason Wilkins]

I have to argue with the assumption that you can't somehow have a GUI editor
unless you have a declarative specification.  Most GUI editors that I have
used generate procedural/oop code, not a special language.

There is very little difference between a declarative language and a
procedural one.  There may be practically no difference between saying
'There is an X' and 'Make an X' in some contexts.

That aside, XML is meant to be parsed with libraries.  You would
not re-implement XML anymore than you'd re-implement a C compiler.  Also,
using a text editor to edit XML is like using a hex editor to edit python
code.  I'm not saying use XML because you have tools that make it easier but
I do find arguments that its complicated to implement from scratch and
difficult to edit with the wrong tools to be rather odd.

I 100% agree that Blender needs a way to fully access the UI as data and I'm
surprised it apparently does not have one already.