Subject: Re: SGML/XML syntax for DSSSL From: lex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alex Milowski) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 11:49:24 -0500 (CDT) |
> I think it will help the discussion if we can use reasonably meaningful > subject lines. Agreed... I hope my mail daemon doesn't munge this one! sendmail is evil! ;-) > One possible kind of alternative syntax is a C/C++/Java/CSS like one. > Another possible kind is an SGML/XML based one. > > For the non-programmer (who presumably already knows SGML), I think > something like: > > <element name=WARN> > <paragraph font-size=12pt font-family-name=Times-Roman > first-line-start-indent=20pt> > <chars font-weight=bold>WARN</chars> > <children> > </paragraph> > </element> > > is quite natural. > > I think this stops being natural when you start trying to doing programming. > But for this, an alternative syntax seems less important to me: the fact > that you have to program in a functional way is a far bigger leap for a > C/C++/Java programmer than is the syntax. I would fully support an "SGML/XML" syntax for DSSSL. This seems like something which can be defined to be isomorphic to Scheme and the current DSSSL expression language. > One approach that makes sense to me is: > > - Provide an SGML/XML syntax for the non-programmatic parts of DSSSL. This > should support calling procedures. You would also need some very simple > "expressions" within attribute values (ie +2pt, 10%). Ok. > - Use the current syntax for defining procedures. This could be moved into SGML/XML as well. I wouldn't ever want to write a procedure using SGML/XML though. > - Provide a more extensive library of procedures to make it possible to > handle a wider range of documents without having to do any programming. > Yes!!! We should have something similar to the slib library for scheme. > This approach I think also makes sense in the context of GUI tools: they > would fully support GUI editing of the XML parts, but the Scheme parts would > be edited as text. Agreed. I would whole-hearted volunteer to coordinate such "standard" with resources from my company. ============================================================================== R. Alexander Milowski http://www.copsol.com/ alex@xxxxxxxxxx Copernican Solutions Incorporated (612) 379 - 3608 DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist
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