[m-dev.] Mercury front ends

[Robert Ernst Johann JESCHOFNIK]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Michael Day wrote:

> 
> > The one thing that I would really like to see (and have considered going
> > ahead and having a crack at implementing myself) is literate source files.
> > If these are implemented, then you can write your program in whatever
> > crazy new aged whizz bang markup language of your choice, and it will
> > work. Your program will be a compilable and also presentable document.
> 
> Making source an XML document is far more useful than a LaTeX document,
> unless your concern is solely with printed documentation. Some mechanism
> is needed to separate the meaning of source code from is presentation, as
> far too much programmer time is wasted on idle bit twiddling that really
> shouldn't be an issue. Why are we so eager to adopt semantics over syntax
> divisions in any field other than our own? Text editors should not be used
> for editing structured documents, particularly not those as highly
> structured as source. The actual implementation of the XML front end can
> easily be done as a script wrapper around the compiler, that feeds it
> source in the format it expects, but the programmer should never have to
> actually insert spaces and match brackets and format comments by hand.

I think you missed my point. I wasn't saying that we should make it soley
accept LaTeX documents. I was saying that we should add the ability to use
literate source files - then you can use *whatever you want* since in a
literace source file you have to mark the -code-, not the comments.

So with literate files you could have your beloved XML, and you could also
write your mercury "hello world" in a postcript file, or inside an
Intercal program, or as part of a texinfo document, or...


Why should we just be locked into using XML? What if people do not know,
or do not like XML?


Rob

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