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Re: optional user-specified end-delimiters

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 109 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 109 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



Per Bothner scripsit:

> I assume you mean:
>   &!END{content}END!

Yes, that's what I meant.  But on reflection I agree that this is bad.

> >I am very much against this, for reasons given earlier:  "}example"
> >should not be distinct from "} example", since "}" is a delimiter.
> 
> Not sure I understand why.  (I don't remember seeing the earlier
> reasons.) I don't see "}" listed as a <delimiter> in either R6RS
> or R7RS draft 8.

That's because it is undefined altogether.  It doesn't make sense to
define something as a delimiter and then say it doesn't actually have
any function.  But in the context of these SRFIs, { and } clearly act
as delimiters, not as identifier characters.

> Regardless, whether it is a <delimiter> is irrelevant - the question
> is what can follow the "}".  Your suggested syntax does have
> "}TAG!" different from "} TAG!".

Yes, and since terminal ! is part of regular Scheme identifiers (though
not tags as defined here), it doesn't make sense to postpose it.

> &!label{content}!label
> &example{content}example
> &example!label{content}!label
> &example!label{content}example!label  ; probably less useful

The more I think about these, the less I think any of them are all that
useful.  XML are what it is (and so is LaTeX and other self-delimiting
markup schemes), but I don't think their ideas need to be pervasive: the
increasing popularity of JSON (which is just S-expressions with braces)
over XML shows that.

I am not one to say "Well, it's bad for the unaided user, but it's
all right if you have the right tools", but I think paren-counting
(brace-counting, etc.)  tools are a price we already pay in Scheme, and I
think we should avoid further complicating something that is already very
bell-and-whistle-filled with all these alternative delimitation schemes.
Let's just stick to "} matches { and ] matches [" and that's all there
needs to be to it.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@xxxxxxxx
        "You need a change: try Canada"  "You need a change: try China"
                --fortune cookies opened by a couple that I know