perl-unicode

Re: In-Band Information Considered Harmfult

1998-10-23 22:04:08
According to Adam Turoff:
I think your objection stands, since no one has figured out how to 
concisely describe the difference between
      Perl <footnote>...</footnote> is teriffic
and
      perl <footnote>...</footnote> is <emph>not</emph> teriffic

Since the XML people haven't figured this out yet, let's not discuss
the issue in terms of XML.  Let's discuss it in terms of Perl
internals.  And in those terms, this is really easy.

We begin with an adaptation of Kari Kin Tha's First Law of Metaphysics:

    "Nothing unreal exists."

And thus formulate Chip's First Law of Metadata:

    "No unreal content exists."

By fiat, whatever a programmer stores as content shall be searchable
and printable by default.  It's all real.

And, by a process of elimination, whatever should not be searchable by
default, the programmer must perforce store as metadata.  It's all
unreal.  To search or print metadata, call Ghostbusters and/or use the
\m{} escape and meta operator.

Whether this approach maps in a predictable way to mechanical parsing
of XML tags is entirely the problem of those who have failed to
completely define XML -- or, more likely, the problem of those who
imagine that XML solves problems that it was not designed to solve.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg               - a.k.a. -              
<chip(_at_)perlsupport(_dot_)com>
 "... under cover of afternoon in the biggest car in the county?!" //MST3K