Re: XSLT is a pattern-action language. So is AWK. What

 I know the whole 'no time' for anything problem.
As I technical writer, I almost regularly have a need to process text in some
form or another.B 
Thx,
Russ
    On Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 09:33:26 AM CST, G. Ken Holman
g.ken.holman@xxxxxxxxx <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 Thank you, Russ.

 From what you say, I probably would find SNOBOL far more interesting
today now that I know XSLT/XPath.

But who has "spare" time these days?

At 11/12/2024 15:21 +0000, russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx
russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>Patterns, and the pieces that make up a pattern, do have an
>underlying grammar, but I can understand that putting various pieces
>together it may not be obviously clear what is going to happen or
>what the side effects will be. Also, there is a temptation to want
>to put EVERYTHING into one glorious pattern and do the match. It can
>be done, but it takes a lot of care.
>
>Also, to the original statement. Snobol/Spitbol, especially using
>the construct of a table or line-based patterns, there is never a
>need for a linear search.
>
>I noticed this similarity in .xslt with the use of the XPath
>expressions. Very elegant construct. So glad I never had to learn
>how to parse the DOM model.
>
>Approaching Snobol/Spitbol and .xslt, imo, requires you to have to a
>different mindset if you are to write elegant programs.
>
>thanks,
>
>Russ
>
>On Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 08:46:04 AM CST, G. Ken Holman
>g.ken.holman@xxxxxxxxx <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>I did mean something else, sorry. Lexically, yes, strings need to be closed.
>
>It was a long time ago, but my recollection is that the syntax
>allowed any combination of tokens and that combination would mean
>something. I wouldn't get a syntax error that the order of tokens was
>wrong, or that declarations were missing, or that some concatenations
>were nonsensical, or some such.
>
>But recollections are faulty ... it was just what came to mind when
>Mike posted.
>
>At 11/12/2024 14:20 +0000,
><mailto:russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx>russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx
><mailto:russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx>russurquhart1@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >I love Snobol/Spitbol and have used it from my college days to the
> >present for text processing of non-xml files. I love it and am so
> >confortable with using it. As I learned Snobol before GREP was
> >available, I never go into Regular expression very much.
> >
> >I'm not sure what you mean that there are no syntax errors in
> >Snobol. When I first started learning it, and every so often now, I
> >can generate a syntax error. for example, forget to close a quote
> >character around a string, etc that'll generate an error, or did you
> >mean something else?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Russ
> >
> >On Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 06:48:30 AM CST, Michael Kay
> ><mailto:michaelkay90@xxxxxxxxx>michaelkay90@xxxxxxxxx
>
<<mailto:xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxx
rrytech.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >What I hated about SNOBOL (in 1979? 1978?) was that there was no
> >such thing as a syntax error.
> >Regular expressions seem to have inherited that tradition.
> >
> >Michael Kay
> >Saxonica
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