Lindsay Marshall wrote:
> It's horrid for several reasons
>
> 1) We already have XML why do we need something that looks the same
> but uses slightly different characters?
Their logic for developing the new language seems to be that XML
is implicitly a tree-structured language, but they want to represent
things that aren't most easily shown as trees, such as overlapping,
parallel classifications of the same data. Their examples are the Bible,
where you can have "chapters and verses" versus "sections and paragraphs",
and structures that represent edited text, where insertions and deletions
can easily overlap with any document-related structural elements.
> 2) The brackets don't appear to nest.
Oddly enough, I believe they do, but they've chosen syntax (as I
understand it) that doesn't make it obvious, at least to my eye.
Paraphrasing their examples a bit, the basic tagging seems to go like this:
[tag}foo{tag]
Tags themselves nest, so you can have
[tag1}[tag2}foo{tag2][tag3}bar{tag3]{tag1]
But tags are appear to be the syntax for what XML calls attributes,
so you can also have:
[tag1 [attr1}foo{attr]}Bar{tag1]
And the end tag can *sometimes* be abbreviated to {] instead of {tag],
presumably in circumstances where it isn't ambiguous to their parser.
So you can have:
[tag1 [attr1}foo{]}Bar{tag1]
I can only assume they're enamoured of mathematical range notation
to arrive at something this hard to read. I note that on their
expanded version that I quoted in my previous e-mail, they take the
trouble to lay out tags like this:
[tag1 [attr1}value{]
}[tag2
}[tag3 [attr2}foo{]
}bar{tag3
]{tag2
]{tag1]
which probably indicates that even they have problems reading them.
(In fact, looking closely at their example at the bottom of:
http://www.lmnl.org/prose/tutorial/index.html
it appears either to contain syntax errors on how they use their
various brackets, or it's inconsistent with their earlier examples,
or I've *completely* misunderstood their earlier explanations.)
They describe their syntax as 'simple', which reminds me of the old
quote that something should be: "as simple as possible, but no simpler."
--
Frank Wales [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss
To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce
To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help
This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
