Steve Litt wrote:
Trouble is, replacing \begin..\end with <>...</> is a hack. LyX developers have defined LyX native format as \begin always is the first character on a line. There's no such requirement in XML, and if we require it, that's a hack. If we don't require it, LyX-XML parsing becomes a whole new level of difficulty.
It's not hard at all, with an XML parser. Actually, putting all XML elements on their own lines, with or without leading whitespace, can be done with a DFA (or anything equivalent, such as a regular expression); you don't even need a full-strength parser. If you want elements all on their own lines, pre-processing with a quick sed script would do that for you.
I'm a toolsmith myself, and I write lots of tools, in lots of languages, for pre- and post-processing various file formats. I don't expect the switch to XML to cause me any problems, and to be honest I'm a bit puzzled by all the worrying.
-- Michael Wojcik Micro Focus Rhetoric & Writing, Michigan State University
