My dislike of XML-based languages might have something to do with the fact that most of them are not imperative. I'd be much more comfortable with something like XML + Javascript...But embedding Javascript into your host app can be a bit of a pain, too - unless you're using .NET. The one nice thing about .NET is the way you can compile and run a .NET-language file quite easily from your host application. It makes adding scripting quite easy...I could easily see an "active script" pattern implementation, which lets you store data in the file using XML and code using something like C# or JScript.

Thanks Colin

It takes just as long (if not longer) to learn an XML-based functional language as it does to learn another, plus it's not generally domain-specific. Ever tried writing SOAP manually? The reason the 15 million different compilers/interpreters are running around is because they're elegant solutions to specific problems. XML - as a language, not as a data exchange format - is worse than COBOL, in my opinion, and I hate COBOL.

Thanks Colin

A lot of large-model code is still written in fortran, particularly weather codes and other simulation codes that really on heavy use of matrices.

Thanks Colin