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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork
From: |
Tom Lord |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork |
Date: |
Sat, 28 Aug 2004 11:55:18 -0700 (PDT) |
> From: address@hidden (Zenaan Harkness)
> > > ~/.arch-params/hats/$HAT/id is the same format as
~/.arch-params/=id.
> > > The id selection is taken care of in arch_my_id_file (I think) by
> > > returning the former if a hat string is passed and the latter if
nil
> > > is passed.
> > > Is it preferable to break it into ~/.arch-params/hats/$HAT/name
and
> > > /uid (or /email)?
> > My thinking has been that we should probably start consistently using
> > s-exp based syntaxes and making sure that they pun as something that
> > could be a macro. That way, among other wins, we have less worry
> > about extending the syntaxes in the future. Something like:
> >
> >
> > ~/.arch-params/hats/$HAT/id:
> >
> > (arch-user "Tom Lord" "address@hidden")
> >
> > or maybe as a tagged alist:
> >
> > (user-params (name "Tom Lord")
> > (id "address@hidden"))
> Just as an aside, I find this parens-encased data format to be quite
> intuitive, and very appealingly shorter (and more consistent and easier
> to learn) than XML 'tags'.
> It's just prefix-based mathematical/ logical expressions that jar
> my thought process.
> Quick question: what exactly does s-exp stand for??
"Symbolic expression", I believe. That's the acronym.
I recall that the term originates with McCarthy (e.g., see the lisp
1.5 manual) and originally did mostly refer to a particular syntax
(one that is distinct from the isomorphic "m-exp" syntax).
Nowadays, it informally means, among lispers, a data structure built
up from certain primitive pairs (cons pairs, etc.) and it is well
known and always presumed that most such values have a
printable/readable representation using traditional lisp-ish syntax.
Strictly literal s-exps, e.g., made from cons-pairs and all, are *not*
appropropriate for arch in any way, afaict. Xl uses a smaller,
slightly lower level, slightly more general set of primitive and
composite types than lisp. It's close enough that if you say to some
people "s-exp" (since "s-exp" is such an informal term) some people
(e.g. Matthew) will get what you're saying.
> > Yes, that's overkill for just this one file but some of the other
> > changes coming up for ~/.arch-params involve restructuring and
> > increasing the amount of structure to other data (e.g., the "table
> > design" for archive registries has lots of fields, some of which
> > contain lists, etc.) I think that, therefore, we'll want "tla/libawk"
> > to be a lot more serious --- basically to be just the data-structure
> > foo from xl plus relational operators on top of that.
> If it means consistency across config files, I wouldn't call it
> overkill (I'd call it consistency :)
Right. Sometimes the cost of consistency is that you must spend a
little more for *today's* immediate problem than you otherwise would,
because otherwise, *tomorrow's* immediate problem will be too
expensive to solve.
So, by "overkill", I only mean that my arch development team is taking
a responsible attitude towards the long term.
-t
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork, (continued)
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork, mlh, 2004/08/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork, Zenaan Harkness, 2004/08/27
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork, Stefan Monnier, 2004/08/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Matthew Dempsky, 2004/08/24
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Tom Lord, 2004/08/24
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Matthew Dempsky, 2004/08/24
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Tom Lord, 2004/08/24
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Zenaan Harkness, 2004/08/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Bruce Stephens, 2004/08/28
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork, Andreas Rottmann, 2004/08/28
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork,
Tom Lord <=
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, James Blackwell, 2004/08/28
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Mark A. Flacy, 2004/08/31
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, David Allouche, 2004/08/31
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Tla spork, Miles Bader, 2004/08/31