From: Sean Chittenden <sean@...>
Date: 2002-05-07T10:37:05+09:00
Subject: Re: 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?

<personal_opinion mixed_in_sarcasm="yes">

I don't think it's too late for this to happen and I've often wondered
about introducing a new directive for Apache so that eRuby processes
<?erb ?> or some such tag.  I'll probably start diving into a patch or
two for that in a few weeks and will solicit Shugo for his thoughts on
how to broach the topic.

As for why things are the way they are? You're living with software
that's been written in the wake of ASP (thank you Microsoft) and JSP
(and thank you Sun, I hope your stock continues to do as well as it
has over the last few months.  heh, keep it up the world will be a
better place).  <% %> was really fashionable when eRuby was first
written... since then XML's become king of the week and eRuby hasn't
accommodated.  At the same time, eRuby is a stand alone binary that
gets used outside of mod_ruby, so there's going to have to be a
transition path to an updated syntax.  That said, I read about 6mo+
ago that processing instructions (PI's, ex: <?[\w]+ ?>) had fallen out
of favor with the W3C and there was some hint of it being depreciated.
What's the markup to supersede it?  ::shrug:: Prince XSL is on the
rise so I'd put my money there.  With PHP at its level of popularity,
who knows how that'll factor in. *ML/W3C reminds me of the family of
the ancient Greek gods: there's always something interesting and F-'ed
up happening.

</personal_opinion>

::grin::  -sc

-- 
Sean Chittenden