[Pmwiki-users] Re: Pmwiki new version

[John Rankin]

On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 2:18 PM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
>>      One of the benefits of [[link syntax]] is that it's easy to
>>      type -- repeating characters is a good thing (cf @@, '',
>%%, ||)
>
>A very good point.  But I also think the that the markup for directives 
>should look distinctively like a "container", in the sense that [[...]], 
>((...)), [:...:], have distinct start and end character sequences.  This
>in contrast to things like @@, '', %%, $$ which use the same sequence
>for start and end.  In particular, things like
>
...
>
>So, if we go with characters that repeat as well as have distinctive
>start and ends, we're basically left with 
>
>   {{directive param}}  - reserved from 0.6 free links
...
>   ((directive param))  - used by other links
>
>I ordered this in terms of "most troublesome to least troublesome",
>but none of them strike me as being very good.  So then it's a question
>of "containerized sequences" versus "doubled characters", and I think
>I lean toward the former as being more important.  But that's just
>my opinion at the moment--let's keep discussing it and see where it
>leads.  :-)

Well I'd like containerised *and* doubled. I think what's emerging is
something like:

   In an ideal world, we'd quite like to choose {{directive param}}
   for a number of reasons, but we have been using it for free links.
   We have switched from {{free links}} to [[free links]] so we can't
   use [[directive param]] any more. But we'd kinda like to keep 
   {{free links}} around for a while.

Pm states elsewhere:

"For compatibility issues, I'd rather reserve the {{...}} to be a
PmWiki-0.6 form of free-links, at least for the time being.  After
a suitable transition period we might be able to redefine {{...}}
for other purposes, but I'd like to leave it alone for now."

For me this is the weakest of the many otherwise excellent arguments
put forward. In some ways, it's easy and simple to say to people:
  - we used to do free links with {{...}}; now we use [[...]]
  - we used to do directives with [[...]]; now we use {{...}}
  - this brings PmWiki into line with other wikis' llink syntax

>
>Pm
>
>P.S.: Even though it's technically the same sequence, //...// *looks*
>like a container of sorts and so it might be useful.  However, I still
>don't like the looks of
>
>    //noheader////nofooter////notitle//
>
>and those trailing slashes make me think of \\ (line break).
>
>
I think I prefer the look of:
    ((noheader))((nofooter))((notitle))


-- 
JR
--
John Rankin