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Re: [ANN] Balisage 2010 Contest - Solve the Modern Towerof Bab

• From: Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>
• To: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
• Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 15:25:08 +1000

Norman Walsh wrote:
> Balisage 2010 Contest - Solve the Modern Tower of Babel
>
> As part of the Balisage 2010 Conference[1], MarkLogic[2] has put forth
> a challenge in the form of a contest. The goal of the contest is to
> encourage markup experts to review and to research the current state
> of wiki markup languages and to generate a proposal that serves to
> de-babelize the current state of affairs for the long haul.
>
> Wikis: Solve the modern tower of babel
>   
OK, Here is my entry.

0) Rule out that you are actually trying to program rather than capture 
thoughts efficiently: if you are, use a Domain Specific Language (little 
language) approach or programming language that supports them, such as 
Scala.* There are open source tools that support this.

1) If you need a standard Wiki, use Creole.** There are open source 
tools that support this.

2) If you need something more complicated, use SGML and convert to XML 
as needed.***  There are open source tools that support this.

3) If you need something more than this, gather a community of 
like-minded people and invent a new standard.

4) If you cannot get a community, just make something up, release it 
open source, and see if other people get attracted to it.

* http://programming-scala.labs.oreilly.com/ch11.html
** http://wikicreole.org/wiki/Home
*** http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/1377

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

• References:
  • [ANN] Balisage 2010 Contest - Solve the Modern Tower of Babel
    • From: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>