Re: [xml-dev] MinML: an experimental, more concise meta-syntax for XML a

["Jesse Alama" <jessealama@fastmail.fm>]

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