Re: Editing specifications with ReSpec.js

Hi,

On Aug 6, 2009, at 12:41 , Anselm R Garbe wrote:
> Why editing HTML at all?

I can think of many good reasons:

   - because it's the output format, and therefore there's a 1-1  
mapping between what we can do in the source and what we can do in the  
target, without the need for extensions
   - because it runs in the browser, avoiding having to run some tool
   - because some people use WYSIWYG tools
   - because it's our dogfood
   - because it's nice to edit, simple, and readable
   - because anyone who plans on editing a W3C specification has to  
know it already, whereas other options need be learnt
   - because it has well-defined interactions with CSS so that it is  
trivial to produce good-looking documents
   - because it can be scripted
   - because it is minimally whitespace sensitive
   - because its syntax is clear, a link is just <a href='foo'>bar</ 
a>, I don't have to wonder whether this time of year it might be [foo  
| bar], [bar | foo] [foo bar] [foo](bar) or maybe some mix, match, and  
reverse of those

> I'd propose to write specs in plain
> markdown[1] and add some additional pre- or post-filters to it, in
> order to generate PubRules compliant HTML. In contrast to HTML,
> markdown aims at being readable in source and gives an idea about
> WYSIWYM -- it can be extended with rfc2119 style keywords -- and even
> your ReSpec.js could be integrated during the generator run.

Yes, the common feature of all wiki markup is that they can eventually  
be extended to the point where they come close to HTML's power and  
flexibility :)

Seriously though, I've edited specifications before based on variants  
on wiki-like languages, and at the end of the day it's always hell.  
Given a choice I'd rather use Word, and that's saying a lot!

--
Robin Berjon
   robineko — setting new standards
   http://robineko.com/

Received on Thursday, 6 August 2009 15:03:02 UTC