Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic SVG - Open for Business
started 2/14/2002; 12:28:55 PM - last post 2/18/2002; 3:50:38 PM
Ehud Lamm - SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/14/2002; 12:28:55 PM (reads: 1653, responses: 6)
SVG - Open for Business
A short tutorial about Scalable Vector Graphics.

Notice again the new approach for language design: instead of designing a new syntax, create an XML vocabulary. [But please don't forget that XML doesn't free you from having to think about language semantics ]

In one of the meetings that I attended this week (while being away from LtU) the possibility of creating such a wrapper for an existing (in house) language was discussed. The proposal was to put the translation between the existing language and the XML input, inside the application server. I tried to explain that the translation must be aware of the structure of the language, and thus it is more logical to put it outside the application server code, and closer to the language processor itself [Note: the organization has more than one internal language, so this is not just a quibble]. This approach, of course, has organizational implications... (I was consulting to the group responsible for the application server, and they are being presssured into writing the translation code).


Posted to xml by Ehud Lamm on 2/14/02; 12:34:52 PM

Ehud Lamm - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/14/2002; 1:07:20 PM (reads: 1053, responses: 0)
Adobe demo page has a demo that uses XSL to create SVG from CML (Chemical Markup Language). Nice.

Ehud Lamm - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/16/2002; 1:41:29 AM (reads: 1012, responses: 0)
And now there's an SVG book.

Oleg - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/17/2002; 2:45:35 PM (reads: 1014, responses: 0)
And now there's an SVG book.

The book includes an example of converting the result of a weather observation from an XML format to a nice picture via SVG.

The source of weather reports in XML format for the example? A Metcast server: http://zowie.metnet.navy.mil/cgi-bin/oleg/get-obs

The script and the Metcast server it asks for data (as well as XML encoders, WMO format decoders etc) are all written in Scheme.

Oleg - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/17/2002; 2:46:37 PM (reads: 1010, responses: 1)
The following pair of articles discuss the design of languages with XML syntax. http://pobox.com/~oleg/ftp/Scheme/xml.html#executable-XML

The articles consider two ways of designing such languages. One is to assign an executable semantics, reduction rules, to an abstract syntax tree representation of an XML document. The other approach is to start with an extant programming language and to introduce rules to pretty-print its abstract syntax tree into the XML format.

BTW, the SSAX XML parser is specifically written as a call-by-value evaluator of an XML document (which is considered a composite term). The parser can perform computations as it parses the document. http://ssax.sourceforge.net/

Ehud Lamm - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/17/2002; 11:33:44 PM (reads: 1066, responses: 0)
The correct link: http://pobox.com/~oleg/ftp/Scheme/xml.html#executable-XML

Oleg - Re: SVG - Open for Business  blueArrow
2/18/2002; 3:50:38 PM (reads: 1006, responses: 0)
I have corrected the URL in the original article. Sorry.