Re: Starting point

On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 07:27:01 -0400, Michael Sokolov 
<sokolov@falutin.net> wrote:

>Config file writers are free to define comment syntax:
>
><comment> hey I'm not saying anything important here, just interjecting 
>some extra verbosity </comment>
>
>Then they could nest comments, too :)

I like the idea of element syntax for comments,
but that does lead to two further requirements:

1. Comment elements must be valid in all elements.
2. All elements must be valid in comment elements.

The second presents a problem for one common use 
of comments.  If you have:

<wrapper>Some introductory text:
<data>The important content.</data>
</wrapper>

and want to remove the <wrapper> temporarily:

<comment>Edit this text:
<wrapper>Some introductory text:
</comment>
<data>The important content.</data>
<comment>
</wrapper>
</comment>

you are no longer well-formed unless you add dummy
end and start tags within the comments, which seems
to defeat the purpose; you can't just remove the
<comment> tags and have the original back.

Currently I'd lean toward allowing comments in the
serialization, but eliminating them from the data model.
That would permit their use for temporary edits without
increasing overall complexity.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy@omsys.com>    http://mif2go.com/

Received on Tuesday, 24 July 2012 21:17:15 UTC