[plt-scheme] Homepages in Scheme

--- Terrence Brannon <metaperl at urth.org> wrote:

> I have been playing around with WebIt! for the past
> week. It lacks a reference manual for one. For two,
> it is built on top of SXML and I have found SXML to
> be enough for my uses. Also, I can get quick help on
> #scheme with SXML as it has a larger userbase.
> Finally Webit! only runs under plt-scheme whereas
> SXML and SSAX work under most major scheme
platforms.

> I also find it aggravating that I must prefix my
HTML
> commands with h4 in Webit! whereas in SXML I can
> simply list the HTML command.

This email contains some common misconceptions, which
I think paint SSAX/SXML as alternatives to WebIt, when
in fact they are complementary.  I'll try to explain
the situation below, and hopefully not propagate my
own misconceptions.

First thing: terminology.  SXML is an encoding of XML
as Scheme s-expressions.  RS-XML is an encoding of XML
as PLT Scheme structures.  SSAX is a Scheme parser and
associated utilities. 

 The core of WebIt is a pattern matching XML
transformation system.  There are distributions of
WebIt that support either SXML or RS-XML as the XML
format.  RS-XML is the 'default' format with WebIt,
which is the one that requires that requires the h4
prefix for HTML.  I believe these prefixes are not
necessary if you use the SXML version.  There is also
a SSAX distribution that supports the RS-XML format,
as opposed to the 'default' SXML format.  So, as an
XML transformation system, WebIt is complementary to
SSAX/SXML, not a mutually exclusive alternative.  For
my money, I find WebIt's pattern matching
transformations much easier to deal with than SSAX's
pre-post-order tree traversal stuff, but this is
purely subjective I imagine.

Noel

=====
Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com
Jabber: noelw <at> jabber <dot> org


	
		
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