Subject: Re: Require guidance on Unicode in IETF formats

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:11:11 +0100

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> Some people feared that mandating Unicode would complicate the grammar
> and would drastically reduce the number of tools available to write
> parsers for this format. They think that Cosmogol, being intended

Given that ASCII and Latin-1 is a proper subset of Unicode, I don't
understand how permitting Unicode makes tools for writing SMDL harder.

For me, I'm thinking that this is mostly text editors, and some gui tools
that would mostly *export* a SMDL.  i.e. that we work mostly in latex-style.
Or, is something thinking that editing tools will read/write the SMDL?

If the processing tools can cope with Unicode, that seems nice.
Is that really that much harder?   Was it simply the "case-insensitive"
nature of things that threw a wrench in things?

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---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:31:42 +0100

On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 06:11:11PM +0100,
 Michael Richardson <[email-masked]> wrote 

> understand how permitting Unicode makes tools for writing SMDL

Because Unicode is a superset of ASCII. So, if you develop with
ASCII-only tools, they may not be able to process all Cosmogol files,
only those written in pure ASCII.
 
> For me, I'm thinking that this is mostly text editors, and some gui
> tools that would mostly *export* a SMDL.  i.e. that we work mostly
> in latex-style.

No, the typical Cosmogol tools are not editors (Cosmogol is, by
design, a text-based language, so you can use any editor), they are
checkers, translators, etc. Same as with ABNF.

> Is that really that much harder?   

I suggested that people post here "implementation reports" of parsers
for Unicode-based language, together with code examples. So far, we
received mostly "It should work" reports :-)

> Was it simply the "case-insensitive" nature of things that threw a
> wrench in things?

Cosmogol is case-sensitive.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:27:55 +0100

>>>>> "Stephane" == Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> writes:
    >> Given that ASCII and Latin-1 is a proper subset of Unicode, I
    >> don't understand how permitting Unicode makes tools for writing
    >> SMDL harder.

    Stephane> Because Unicode is a superset of ASCII. So, if you develop
    Stephane> with ASCII-only tools, they may not be able to process all
    Stephane> Cosmogol files, only those written in pure ASCII.

  No. 

  If I develop with ASCII-only *WRITING* tools, then I can't type
Unicode, so I can always process my own files. 

  Of course, the *PROCESSING* tools need to be unicode. That's not the
same as saying that my Emacs needs to unicode.
 
    >> For me, I'm thinking that this is mostly text editors, and some
    >> gui tools that would mostly *export* a SMDL.  i.e. that we work
    >> mostly in latex-style.

    Stephane> No, the typical Cosmogol tools are not editors (Cosmogol
    Stephane> is, by design, a text-based language, so you can use any
    Stephane> editor), they are checkers, translators, etc. Same as with
    Stephane> ABNF.

  Cosmogol WRITING tools are EDITORS.
  Cosmogol PROCESSING tools are checkers,translators,etc.

    >> Is that really that much harder?

    Stephane> I suggested that people post here "implementation reports"
    Stephane> of parsers for Unicode-based language, together with code
    Stephane> examples. So far, we received mostly "It should work"
    Stephane> reports :-)

    >> Was it simply the "case-insensitive" nature of things that threw
    >> a wrench in things?

    Stephane> Cosmogol is case-sensitive.

  So, we don't have to worry about f vs the 6 different f's that
can be used to write Patrik Falstrom's nane.

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