Parsability (re: Thinking about style sheets)
H&kon W Lie (howcome@w3.org)
Wed, 3 May 1995 16:10:05 --100
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 16:10:05 --100
Message-Id: <9505031410.AA29792@www4.cern.ch>
To: young@cs.purdue.edu
Cc: www-html@www10.w3.org, howcome@www4.cern.ch
Subject: Parsability (re: Thinking about style sheets)
In-Reply-To: <199505021423.JAA18205@aleta.cs.purdue.edu>
From: "H&kon W Lie" <howcome@w3.org>
Michal Young writes:
> > Hakon's format is broken into manageable, logical chunks
> > that allow for extensibility and ease of parsing.
>
> Although these examples look more human-readable than the lisp-like syntax
> of a previous dssl-lite proposal, it seems to be a step backward in
> extensibility and ease of parsing.
So far, the emphasis has been on designing a language that people,
with a minimal knowledge of HTML and typography, will understand
intuitively. I've written a parser for the style sheet language, and
so has Bill Perry. It's not too hard.
When the style sheet language settles down a bit, we will have to
describe it using a formal scheme. Formalism may even influence the
final specification, but shouldn't be our main concern at this point.
> there
> should be a very clear demarcation of a kernel long-lived style sheet
> language from a set of particular facilities that match contemporary DTP.
Agreed. Also the support for non-visual media will require
extensibility both in the list of setable properties and the
measurement units:
H1: volume = 50db
While keeping the core (address: property = unit) intact.
-h&kon
Hakon W Lie, WWW project CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/howcome/