Interesting. There is certainly something to be said for mashing things into one line in certain contexts. I have a SINGLE-LINE-MOLD func I use for logging, for example, and having tools that could operate in a mix of line-oriented nix fashion with each line being structured, is a possibility too.
DocKimbel
Gregg, did you miss MOLD/FLAT? :-)
Gregg
It doesn't remove line breaks.
Ah, Red does. So my func is obsolete. :-)
Though mine, IIRC, replaces line breaks with their escaped counterparts.
Ah, Red does that too, on ML strings. You win. :-)
And thank you. :-)
DocKimbel
;-)
Gregg
Back to time!
Gregg
# Use cases - standalone time (point in time) - standalone time (duration) - part of date-time (time of day) - timezone (offset from UTC)
My argument for this is that it keeps the rules simple, and is flexible but still constrained.
Votes? And if you vote No/-1, a short reason please.
DocKimbel
-1 because I think that date! and time! values should be normalized in a data exchange format. Though, specifying such rules would make the spec significantly more complex, but not doing it would just shift the burden onto the implementers, which might result in different interpretations. For the duration use-case, I am for using a different format than time!, maybe resulting in a new datatype.
(I am taking the perspective of people implementing REN in non-Rebol languages)
Gregg
How does the above proposal make it harder for non-Redbol languages?
Anything specific in YAML? I do note it, and other formats evaluated and why Ren isn't them.
DocKimbel
YAML format is getting traction among open source projects, it is nicer and richer than JSON. It provides "heredoc" features for embedding other formats (like XML or JSON). It's a very good human-readable format. OTOH, the specification itself is rather long and complex, but that is not a show-stopper for YAML adoption among many languages. I think we have to learn from it.
Maybe providing a C-level library for Ren would be a good way to simplify the integration with non-Rebol languages.
Gregg
I looked at YAML in depth many years ago, and even started a parser for it at one point, thinking it looked OK on the surface, but I quickly gave up on it. Aside from a couple JS tools using it for config/proj files, I didn't know it was gaining wider traction. What looks simple and readable really has complex rules that can leak through to users. I'm happy to have someone point out specific things we can learn from it though.
I mentioned a C Ren lib as an important piece to aid adoption in another group, so I very much agree.
Interesting. I hadn't seen that. It's not just a format though, it defines a lot of behavior as well. I think we may offer some guidelines for Ren library behaviors, but I don't want to head down the path Hocon has. And some things just seem like a bad idea. e.g.:
// this is an array with one element, the string "1 2 3 4" [ 1 2 3 4 ] // this is an array of four integers [ 1 2 3 4 ]