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Per Bothner scripsit: > On 11/18/2012 01:22 PM, John Cowan wrote: > > >I strongly prefer XML-style with braces. > > Both forms use both braces and brackets, so I'm unclear > whether you mean "XML-style with braces for literal text" > or "XML-style with braces for escaped expressions". I meant the former, eliminating the whole idea of initial expressions. They seem to be insufficiently justified in this draft (to be sure, it says "examples needed", which I can only agree with). If there are no initial expressions, then square brackets need not be used, and braces suffice for both quasi-expressions and unquoted expressions. Given that there is substantial disagreement in the Scheme world about what, if anything, square brackets should be for, I consider it wise to avoid them. But if initial expressions are to be kept, I don't see why the example #&cname[&{exp1 exp2}text} should be expanded into something involving an empty string. Does #&cname[&{exp1}&{exp2}] expand to ($quasi-value$ cname "" exp1 "" exp2 "")? Surely not. If the two notations are said to be equivalent, they should be *truly* equivalent, and the user left to choose between them without any desugaring artifacts. > I don't believe either "xml-style" or "scribble-style" (or certain other > possible variations) directly conflict with SRFI-105 or brackets as > alternative parens. Hmm, right. Okay, never mind those arguments -- but I still think it's better not to have square brackets. I think your remark that Scribble-style is not really compatible with Scribble is enough to sink the idea. It's hard to maintain two subtly different lexical syntaxes in one's head. The XML-style is really not much like XML, and creates no mental conflicts. -- John Cowan cowan@xxxxxxxx http://ccil.org/~cowan Assent may be registered by a signature, a handshake, or a click of a computer mouse transmitted across the invisible ether of the Internet. Formality is not a requisite; any sign, symbol or action, or even willful inaction, as long as it is unequivocally referable to the promise, may create a contract. --Specht v. Netscape