[plt-scheme] may I copy scribble?

On Jul 26, Rob wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been writing a Lisp-like language that runs in the Java VM, and
> I'd like to copy the reader extension idea from scribble -- the main
> ideas documented here:
> 
> http://pre.plt-scheme.org/docs/html/scribble/reader.html
> 
> I like the @cmd[datum ...]{text ... } syntax.  I see that PLT is
> LGPL, but I'm not copying source code, and I'm not sure what people
> expect these days when you copy "ideas".  So I figured I'd just ask.
> Of course, I would write an acknowledgement in my documentation.

Yes, we (or at least *I*) would be happy if more implementations
supported the scribble syntax.  I've recently written a paper on the
design of the scribble syntax which is going to appear in the scheme
workshop, and that is probably going to be helpful in learning about
the many considerations that were done in developing the syntax.  And
one of the things I say in the paper is that it would be good for
implementations to support the syntax, since it will allow exchanging
code that deals with text -- in contrast to the current state of
things where portable code is limited to plain Scheme strings and lots
of `string-append's.

Also, if/when you get to implement it, it will probably be very
helpful to use the reader's test suite:

  http://svn.plt-scheme.org/plt/trunk/collects/tests/scribble/reader.ss

Note that there *might* be minor changes, since it's relatively new,
but I don't think that any big changes are likely.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!