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Hi Bryan, On Wed, Jan 4, 2023, at 8:32 AM, Ford Bryan wrote: > On 3 Jan 2023, at 07:04, Liam R. E. Quin <liam@fromoldbooks.org> wrote: >> On Tue, 2023-01-03 at 05:24 +0000, Ford Bryan wrote: >>> Hi everyone, >>> >>> I thought this new blog post might be of interest to members of this >>> mailing list: >>> >>> MinML: concise but general markup syntax >>> https://bford.info/2022/12/28/minml/ >> >> The strength of XML, the biggest strength, is that the syntax, despite >> its warts and quirkiness, works everywhere. Pretty much every >> programming language has at least one XML parser, and the degree of >> interoperability is unparalleled. > > I fully agree that XML’s strength is its interoperability and ubiquity > — and I think that giving it a more modern, convenient, optional and > cross-convertible meta-syntactic “skin” like MinML would further > support those strengths rather than working against those strengths. I > don’t see MinML as looking to replace XML, at all, just give it a more > convenient facelift for users who write or read it manually. The > existing syntax might, basically forever, remain the “archival” and > “wire” format for XML-structured data, with MinML being an optional > “front-end presentation” syntax that gets converted to traditional XML > after manual entry (e.g., as website generators like WordPress and Hugo > already do with formats like Markdown). > > For archival/transmission efficiency purposes, there are already > binary/compressed XML formats aplenty, which similarly play a different > role and MinML would not be intended to replace either. They are > complementary, not trying to replace XML. > >> Previous work in this area includes ftanml (there's a Balisage paper >> about that one at least) but it's very hard to get any traction. >> Markdown succeeded precisely because it doesn't have complex rules - >> although as soon as you get into anything complex Markdown falls over >> and feebly kicks its legs in the air like a Corgi on Valium. > > Thanks for the pointers! I’ll look at them more deeply. From a first > quick look at FtanML, I see some obvious parallels (e.g., getting rid > of end tags for greater conciseness), but the overall goals are quite > different: i.e., a complete “ground-up redesign” of markup rather than > just a new meta-syntactic skin preserving compatibility with the same > basic structure. In this respect, MinML is much “less ambitious” than > FtanML, but more backward-compatible and hence more interoperable and > synergistic with traditional XML. It’s not clear that you could > cross-convert FtanML to/from XML, whereas reliable automatic > cross-conversion (i.e., semantic compatibility and preservations of all > the same tags and basic structure) is a key goal for MinML. > >> It also looks as if, confusingly, the HTML character entities are built >> in to your proposal, instead of the usual XML mechanism of defining >> one's own? > > It’s true that the current early prototype proposal and implementation > slightly-uncomfortably “mixes” a few things that should (and I think > will) operate at separate levels. In particular, the “basic MinML” > syntax that I think is most important does not and should not care what > character entities exist or where they were defined. My current > prototype implementation, however, for the sake of immediate usability, > incorporates a couple features that should probably be at a different > layer: e.g., the particular character references it currently provides > should be considered part of “MinML-styled HTML”, not part of the > “basic MinML” meta-syntax itself. The same goes for the double-quote > substitution syntax “[quote], which definitely shouldn’t be part of > “basic MinML” per se but should be provided, if at all, at a higher > layer. Figuring out the right separation and modular structure is > definitely still a work in progress. > > Cheers > Bryan This is a great project, thank you -- I've highlighted it on my Mastodon account! Looking forward to further developments. Jesse
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