Re: Delimiters for pragmas

Steven Pemberton <steven.pemberton@cwi.nl> writes:
>> Making pragmas something different where the only intended audience
>> is implementations, and each implementation can do its thing runs the
>> risk of implementations using it as a playground for ixml divergence,
>> and as a place where implementations can satisfy use cases without
>> making them a standardised part of the language.
>
> And, by the way, the discussions this week have only strengthened my
> fears. To my eyes, pragmas are turning into a monster.

Putting pragmas in the language doesn’t create this problem. It draws a
box around it, puts standard syntax on it, and at least makes possible a
degree of standardized interoperability.

Declining to put pragmas in the language won’t stop implementors from
doing what they want. They can either extend the grammar that their
implementations recognize in a non-standard way or use magic comments
which will invite confusion and reduce interoperability.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica