18. The system of claim 13, wherein the attribute mapper comprises a plurality of property descriptors, each property descriptor comprising a name and a write method for writing an attribute to component property.
13. A system for creating and configuring a component-based application, the system comprising: at least one element processor for reading a parse tree comprising at least one element, and for at least a subset of the elements of the parse tree, transforming the element into a component in an application framework, and for transforming the component into a running application; an element mapper, coupled to the at least one element processor, for mapping the element to a target class; and an attribute mapper, coupled to the at least one element processor, for mapping an attribute of the element to a property of the component; wherein the element processor transforms the element into the component by calling the element mapper to map the element, and instantiating the component.