[E-Lang] Kernel-E in Minimal-XML

[Dan Moniz]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark S Miller <markm@caplet.com> writes:

    Mark> has been updated as well, even though Minimal-XML has no DTD. It
    Mark> still seems like a good idea to write an XML DTD that explains a
    Mark> given use of Minimal-XML, and allows it to be checked when submitted
    Mark> to a full-XML processor.

Yes. Very very very good idea.

    Mark> Open issues:

    Mark> How to represent source-position information? (Since we'll be using
    Mark> this as our universal parse-tree and quasi-parse-tree
    Mark> representation.)

Floating attribute perhaps?

    Mark> How to turn literal character data (as in a literal String) into the
    Mark> text between tags so that it is XML-processed back into the original
    Mark> data? (I'm sure it's a trivially solved problem. We just need to find
    Mark> the solution.)

Hrm. I was thinking that you could write (to use an IBM buzzterm) a transcoding
utility to turn literal strings into Unicode strings and use &bla; type
entities inside the XML (so as not to clash with angle brackets), but that
would get hella annoying to read. Not that this presents a solutuion.

Or am I not on the the right page here?

    Mark> What (quasi-)parser to use? Current candidates are to adapt MinML, to
    Mark> wait for Monty's fixes to ANTLR, or to just write a Minimal-XML
    Mark> quasi-parser by hand.

I think writing one by hand is a bad idea. Better, in my mind, to wait for
Monty's fixes or adapt MinML and publish the adaptions

    Mark> Is Minimal-XML really a downward compatible subset of XML (as they
    Mark> claim) or (as I suspect) do we need to identify and restrict
    Mark> ourselves to the intersection of these two standards?

I think that regardless, we shold do our due dilligence and identify and
restrict. It won't hurt if we do and the stadards are compatible at some level,
and it will certainly help if they're not. Both are moving targets anyways, so
what's true today could change tomorrow.

    Mark> Should ERights.org "endorse" Minimal-XML? What would this mean? Would
    Mark> anyone care? Are there any downsides?

I think using it is plenty. To publically state endorsement gets us into all
sorts of battles and potentiall squabbles we would rather avoid, I think. Do
you endorse the use of a hammer publicly? I don't, although I may suggest it if
a friend has a problem to which I have found a hammer is an acceptable solution
(perhaps one of many such solutions).

    Mark> And then there are all those questions about representing serialized
    Mark> object graphs.

Eek. Not my domain.

When are you going to be away/unreachable again? I may be in San Fran later
this week.


-- 
Dan Moniz <dnm@pobox.com> [http://www.pobox.com/~dnm/]