After Parrot, what next?

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 16:00:45 GMT, David C. Ullrich <ullrich at math.okstate.edu>
wrote:
>On 10 Apr 2001 11:54:35 GMT, neelk at alum.mit.edu (Neelakantan
>Krishnaswami) wrote:
>>
>>You're too late.
>>
>>  http://www.w3.org/TR/xexpr
>>
>> Yes, I thought it was a joke at first too, but no joy. How can
>> anyone possibly consider this a good idea? The mind boggles. :(
>
> The fact that TeX already exists does not mean there's no need
> for MathML, nor is MathML a replacement for TeX; they have 
> different uses in different domains.

Bah. If you made the argument that MathML is needed because when
sending equations over the network it's a good ideas if the equation
language is not Turing-complete, I'd agree.

But for an actual programming language there's no win at all in a
language using XML as its concrete syntax. That's the easiest part;
there is no leverage to using XML there. You can't even use it to make
automatic program generation easier because there's no standard
mechanism to avoid variable capture.

If you want a custom XML transformation language, DSSSL is better,
already exists, and is designed for this domain. It has an actual
semantics; it is more expressive; and it is easier for humans to read
and write.


Neel