Re: [Psgml-devel] Re: Key sequence C-c C-f C-e uses invalid prefix characters
Brought to you by:
lenst
From: Ron R. <ro...@co...> - 2002-12-18 00:38:25
|
"Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/emacs/pr...@ru...> writes: >> Richard Stallman wrote: >> > Dave Love wrote something earlier about including PSGML in the Emacs >> > distribution. I don't know the status of this. But it could either be >> > as a replacement of the current sgml-mode or in addition to it. >> >> Replacement. I've been advocating this ever since psgml reached stable >> *years* ago. sgml-mode alone is useless and vastly confusing for the >> beginner, as it precisely does *NOT* implement SGML editing, only the >> recognition of pointy brackets -- useful 15 years ago but not now! > > Last I heard (and that was before Dave's patches were incorporated), > PSGML did not deal well at all with the situation where the DTD is > unknown, which happens to be the standard case for me. This is > why I spent some time improving sgml-mode. > I believe that Dave's patches do bring PSGML to the point where it > is about as good as sgml-mode when editing text without DTD, so maybe > it is now good enough to replace sgml-mode. I must agree with Peter Flynn and question whether Emacs' default *sgml*-mode be one that functions /a priori/ without a DTD. It's almost a contradiction in terms. > >> Please. In perpetuating sgml-mode we are making the Emacs distro look >> very silly. > > Given the amount of complaint about PSGML "not indenting and not > highlighting" we have seen on gnu.emacs.help I'd say that the lack > of DTD-less support has been a problem for a long time now. > Yes, PSGML should be included in Emacs, and as soon as it truly > works as well (no matter how poor that is) as sgml-mode in > DTD-less settings, we can and should replace sgml-mode with PSGML. > > But the DTD-less setting is very important. The indentation and syntax-highlighting issue should really be distinguished from the DTD issue, which in turn covers the separate issues of working without a DTD and working with the new XML apparatus (schemas and namespaces) related to DTDs. DTD-less editing seems to me to be specific to a small subset of XML files. As long as we are considering a consolidation of markup language support in Emacs, perhaps psgml could become the default SGML/XML mode, and then another mode - whether derived from psgml or from the current sgml packages - could be made a available for DTD-less editing (something like "sgml/xml-lite"). The elisp namespace problem would then be solved by leaving psgml with the "sgml/xml"-prefixed symbols and then developing a new namespace for the qndml (quick-n-diry-ml-mode ;-). Ron |