Re: Formal description of Org files

[Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com>]

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec should be a good starting
point this.

Specifically one could adopt an approach similar to what the "Parser
outline" section says and do some reverse literate programming
(elisp--->Natual Language)

Let me put on my didactic hat and remind the participants in this
list/thread the "GTD approach" to Getting Things Done.

Collect->Process->Organize->Review->Do

I see (and I could be wrong) an intermingling of all of the above steps
in a single step in this thread. A simple worg page that "collects" the
low hanging fruits to begin with will be a good but firm first step in
this direction. It would also enable consolidation of notes in a single
place (rather than it being fragmented in a bunch of mboxy thingies) and
also enable community contribution.

Let's all step back from the mailing list (or this thread) for a while
and contirbute to "growing" a spec from within a Worg page. I think it
would help if we keep our focus away from lexers/parsers and bnf/ebnf
etc and return to it when we refine the model.

Formal Descriptions only adds precision and (possibly refinement) to a
model. They are generally of limited help while growing the model
itself. So a informal spec in plain English (with accompanying regexes)
should be good enough. Mankind has made good progress with just pen and
paper and lately with plain text files :-).

ps: I definitely see Nicolas "at it". Others seem more like
cheerleaders. Both have their roles to play and their respective
contributions are equally helpful.

Jambunathan K.