Re: [RFC] Simplify attributes syntax

[Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com>]

Hello,

Aaron Ecay <aaronecay@gmail.com> writes:

> I think this patch is a welcome simplification.  Would it be possible to
> merge the code that is used for reading babel header args (things like
> “:results output :file foo.txt”) with the code from the exporter?

It is probably possible, but that's way beyond the scope of this patch.

Note that the needs are very different for each reader. Export reader
must be very simple (no escaping character) and only needs to read
strings. OTOH Babel reader has to determine the type of data it reads
(list, number...).

> Unless they are parsed by the same code, the two syntaxes will differ in
> subtle and headache-inducing ways (for users and developers).

It can be troublesome for users in some corner cases (I think Babel
reader uses "none" or "no" where Export reader expects "nil"). I doubt
it will be for developers, who should know which reader they are working
with.

I could replace "nil" -> nil with "no" -> nil in the Export reader, but
I don't like this solution. In English, there are "no", "No", "NO",
"None", "NONE", "none"... but in Elisp, there is only "nil".


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou