From: bigredlinux@... (Dan Allen)
Date: 2002-05-07T10:14:56+09:00
Subject: tags for embedded ruby

After reading endless xml books and watching all of these languages
like perl, python and ruby go the way of PHP and make embedding code
within html possible, I don't understand why the standards for xml
processing instructions are not followed.  It seems like it could be
endlessly flexible since the language could come up with its own
constructs while still following the recommended standard.  This
allows scripts written with embedded code to be valid xml and more
appropriate when having to store the data as xml documents.  Examples
would be as follows

<?rb puts "hello world"?> ruby
<?py print "hello word",?>  python
<?perl print "hello world"?> perl

Seems to me very straightforward and follows the precendent that PHP
started.  In addition to this, it could be extended to include the
sort tags syntax by making

<?rbe ... for expressions
<?rbi ... for ignored code

I wish I could just shout this out for all to hear because it seems so
obvious but no one is going this way.  Since we are early in eruby
development, maybe it is not to late to get it to catch on.  Thoughts?

Dan Allen