Re: Thoughts on pragmas and iXML

Graydon <graydonish@gmail.com> writes:
> It is rash of me to wade in to this discussion, but let's see how far I get before the waters close over me.

Dive in! I don’t think you were rash, I think you make some interesting points, and I *really* want to encourage everyone to participate!

> I have formed a vague impression that one of the functional constraints on pragmas is a preference for whatever pragma syntax not making it difficult to parse an ixml grammar with ixml.

When we discussed pragmas before 1.0 shipped, we were one member shy of unanimity for accepting the pragmas proposal, but it wasn’t accepted. That proposal formed the basis of a Balisage paper[1].

One of the objections raised was that the proposal was too ambitious. Because there had been no up-front agreement on the requirements for a pragmas proposal, it was difficult to analyze this objection.

Now that we’re discussing pragmas again, I think it’s critical that we resolve the requirements *before* we begin discussing design. The requirements document that we’re currently discussing is *very* careful not to make any statements about the design.

I think you’ve presented some interesting ideas, but I don’t want to get ahead of establishing that we have a common understanding of the requirements, and a common framework for analyzing various proposals, before we begin to look at *how* we might implement pragmas.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

[1] https://balisage.net/Proceedings/vol27/html/Sperberg-McQueen01/BalisageVol27-Sperberg-McQueen01.html

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica

Received on Wednesday, 5 February 2025 19:56:08 UTC