Una wrote:
But the discussion here keeps slipping into implementation issues and forgetting about the underlying abstractions.
This is so true and has dogged this list ever since it started - at this stage we need to be constantly on guard against dropping to quickly into building something before we have properly defined the scope of the project.
We could conduct this discussion in PERL code too. (Hey, why not?)
Because PERL is yucky, that's why... :)
Why not forget the codes (or pseudo codes) and use ordinary words that we all understand? *Then* decide which language (if any) to implement it in, *after* we all agree what "it" is.
That is what I am waiting for... XML seems to be a fairly intuitive contemporary way of describing things and it seems to be a reasonable thing to use for the time being... Remember our very first attempts to do it in EBNF? Same idea, different language, but at the time, I do not think many of us were aware of what we were trying to achieve... This was a graphic example of an idea probably being right, but if people can not understand and embrace it, it will not get anywhere...
Still not 100% sure what 'it' is, but I think with the most recent discussions we are getting closer...
jim