IRC log of ixml on 2025-01-21

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I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2025/01/21-ixml-minutes.html norm
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Meeting: Invisible XML Community Group
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Date: 21 January 2025
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Chair: Steven
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Scribe: Norm
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Present: Steven, Norm, John, Bethan, Nico, David
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Topic: Accept the minutes of the previous meeting
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Previous meeting: https://www.w3.org/2025/01/07-ixml-minutes
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Present: +Fredrik
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Present: Steven, Norm, John, Bethan, Nico, David, Fredrik
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Accepted.
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Topic: Review of open actions
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No progress reported.
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Topic: Status reports
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Bug reports and fixes here and there.
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Topic: New open issues
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None.
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Topic: Pragma requirements
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Bethan: Thanks to everyone who sent me requirements. I thought we'd go through them and see which ones we accept and which we need to discuss.'
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s/discuss.'/discuss./
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John: Could a pragma be attached anywhere?
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Bethan: I tried not to answer any of those questions; we need to answer those questions.
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Steven: In that case, I object to "always attach"; it "may be" attached.
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Some discussion of what it means to have a pragma that is or isn't attached to something.
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Nico: It needs to be attached because that establishes the scope.
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Steven: If it says "use parsing XYZ" is that still attached to something?
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Bethan: Yes, that's for the whole grammar.
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Further discussion of what an "unattached" pragma might mean.
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Steven: I think the content of a pragma might be attached, but not the pragma itself.
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Some discussion of where the pragma might appear in the XML representation and what that means.
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Some discussion of what the word "attach" means.
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Steven: I can imagine a pragma might want to talk about some structure...
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David: Might it be clearer if we used the term "scope" instead of "attach"
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Bethan: That's also in the description.
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John: We do know one thing, in terms of the iXML grammar, we have atoms, the symobols. We know that pragmas cannot be inside an atom, inside a terminal string for example.
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Bethan: Yes, I think that's right.
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Bethan: If all of the pramgas were placed at the end of the grammar and said what they annotated; I'd describe them as being attached to the grammar and expressing their scope in the pragma data.
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... but in the XML, they'd have to be a child of the root element. But if we place them physically next to the constructs they annotation, we'd probably want them to be children.
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Steven: I don't agree.
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Nico: If you wanted to have a pragma that applied to many nonterminals, you might want to put it at the beginning of the grammar.
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Further discussion of what "attach" means.
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Bethan: It means it has a syntactic relationship with some element in the grammar, for example in the XML representation.
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Nico: Aren't "attach" and "scope" inverse?
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Fredrik: Thinking about the use of pragmas; one use I'd like is to add hints to the grammar so that the tool could know that, for example, the author thinks this is a top-down parser.
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... It could be useful if you see that there's a part of a grammar that's top-down.
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... And then, my attention is to annotate a rule and its children. In that case, I associate with the pragma with the rule nearest it somehow.
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Steven: I see pragmas as a place where software can do stuff.
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Norm: I think it's perverse to say that pragmas are "just comments" and that how they are bound to constructs is entirely up to the individual implementations.
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Bethan: Where does the pragma go in the XML?
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Steven: I haven't been convinced there's a reason to cast this into the specification.
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Bethan: So two different iXML processors could produce different XML serializations of the same grammar.
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Steven: Yes.
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Bethan: That's what I'm trying to avoid.
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Fredrik: I think it's obvious that the pragma should appear in a predefined place in the XML based on the grammar.
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Steven: Yes.
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Fredrik: Maybe the requirement formulation should say something about where the pragma will appear.
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Bethan: There's nothing in the requirements that says pragmas are comments. We have to decide that.
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... The terms "attach" and "scope" are just intended to help us understand what the requirements that follow mean.
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... Attach is about the syntactic placement and annotate is about the semantics.
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... We need some way to talk about the syntactic placement and semantic scope of pragmas.
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Steven: They're only useful if they're unambiguous.
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John: We have some precedent in one sense, we have comments in the definition of iXML and we have mapping of exactly where there go in the XML tree.
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... It's not reversible. A comment that sat on one side or another of a ":" isn't necessarily going to go on the same side if you go back to text.
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... I think we need a good mapping for pragmas.
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Bethan: That's useful. Stepping back a little, the definition doesn't say anything about the placement, it just says that when we see a pragma, we know where it goes in XML.
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John: Why did you decide that comments must appear in the XML?
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Steven: I didn't. I originally deleted them all. Michael insisted that they be in the XML.
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John: Comments can move around.
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Steven: Is there a difference between "attach" and "positioned in some syntactic construct"?
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Bethan: I wouldn't necessarily say that a pragma is positioned in a construct; that's less general.
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... I think attached is somewhat more neutral than positioned at or in or before or after.
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Bethan: Would it help to move onto the requirements and see if our concerns about the definitions actually interferes with understanding.
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Bethan: Rule 1: A pragma must not change the semantics of an iXML grammar - that is, it must not cause the processor to produce a parse tree which could never be produced using the same grammar if the pragma were removed.
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Steven: I'm not sure, I'd have to think about it more.
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Proposal: add "according to the specification" in rule 1.
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Consensus: with that amendment we accept rule 1.
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Some discussion of the use of deep equal and a canonical serialization.
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Bethan: Rule 2: Removing a pragma from an iXML grammar must not affect the syntactic validity of that grammar.
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Consensus: accepted
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Rule 3: Pragmas must not be an important part of iXML.
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Norm: What does that mean?
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Steven: It means they aren't necessary.
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Nico: So a processor that completely ignores pragmas is still conformant?
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Steven: Yes.
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John: In the spirit of Michael, you could get a case where by putting in a pragma you could get answer out.
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Norm: Could we just say "support for pragmas must be optional?"
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David: That seems clearer.
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Some discussion of whether or not even needed if it's implied by the first two rules.
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Bethan: Rule 4: Pragmas must only be used for communicating with software.
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Steven: I think I said "are for" not "must only".
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Bethan; Yes, but as a requirement or desiderata it needs to have "must" or "should" in it.
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... an existential statement is harder to evaluate.
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... I'd be happier to change it to a "should".
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Steven: It doesn't really express what I wanted to say.
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Further discussion of whether or not "pragmas are for communicating with software" is a useful benchmark.
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Steven: In that case, I'd prefer a "must".
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Consensus: accepted
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Some discussion of how we should have a discussion about this.
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Consensus drifts towards email.
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Bethan: Rule 5: Pragmas must be defined in the iXML specification without consideration of, or reference to, the needs of any particular processing software.
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Consensus: accepted.
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Topic: Any other business
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Possible regrets from John.
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Steven: And remember that the CfP for both MarkupUK and Balisage are now open.
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