Re: [invisibleXML/ixml] https://github.com/invisibleXML/ixml/blob/master/samples/URI/rfc-3987.ixml (Issue #139)

(Sorry, ctrl-return sends the message, so if I take my finger off the ctrl 
too late, it sends. Here is the message as intended.)



My apologies if anything in this comment seems terse or ungenerous; my ego 
seems to be reacting with less equanimity than one could wish to some of 
the wording in the comments on this issue.

Oh, I'm sorry if I offended you. Recognising the grammar as a direct 
transliteration of the RFC 3987 grammar, I didn't think you would feel any 
personal ownership, otherwise I would have tempered my language.


Any criticism that there was was entirely directed at messrs Duerst and 
Suignard (both of whom I know personally) 
for the inconsistencies in their grammar, even though I am entirely 
grateful that they produced such a grammar. Try to find one for 
internationalised email addresses and you end up in a twisty maze of 
passages all alike.


(I should point out that I was forced to turn RFC 3987 into a regular 
expression for the XForms spec.)


But we should recognise that the purpose of RFC 3987 is to define the 
syntax of 
a correct IRI; our purpose on the other hand is to reveal the 
structure.


For  that reason I personally would prefer, to take an example, the 
(sub-)grammar for IPv6 to have a form like:
 IPv6: h4**":";
               h4**":", zeros, h4**":".
         h4: h; 
             h, h; 
             h, h, h; 
             h, h, h, h.
         zeros: "::".        
         -h: ["0"-"9"; "A"-"F"; "a"-"f"]. 

rather than the hoops that they have to jump through to ensure 
that there are no more than 8 colons in an IPv6 address.

This makes our grammar easier to manage, and easier to read, at the expense 
of allowing more than 8 colons in an IPv6 address. Is that good or bad? It 
depends.

Steven





On Friday 12 August 2022 22:26:00 (+02:00), Steven Pemberton wrote:



My apologies if anything in this comment seems terse or ungenerous; my ego 
seems to be reacting with less equanimity than one could wish to some of 
the wording in the comments on this issue.

Oh, I'm sorry if I offended you. Recognising the grammar as a direct 
transliteration of the RFC 3987 grammar, I didn't think you would feel any 
personal ownership, otherwise I would have tempered my language.


Any criticism that there was was entirely directed at messrs Duerst and 
Suignard (both of whom I know personally) 
for the inconsistencies in their grammar, even though I am entirely 
grateful that they produced such a grammar. Try to find one for 
internationalised email addresses and you end up in a twisty maze of 
passages all alike.


(I 
should point out that I was forced to turn RFC 3987 into a regular 
expression for the XForms spec.)


But 
we should recognise that the purpose of RFC 3987 is to define the syntax of 

a correct IRI; our purpose on the other hand is to reveal the 
structure.


For 
that reason I personally would prefer, to take an example, the 
(sub-)grammar for IPv6 to have the form:


 IPv6: h4**":";

     
           h4**":", zeros, h4**":".
         h4: h; 
             h, h; 
             h, h, h; 
             h, h, h, h.
         zeros: "::".        h: 
["0"-"9"; "A"-"F"; "a"-"f"]. 

rather than the hoops that they have to jump through to ensure 
that there are no more than 8 colons in an IPv6 address.