On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 05:52:10PM -0700, Sean M. Burke wrote:
> So. Saying that Pod's canonical "normalization" is as XML begs the
> question of what the XML will look like.
> One point on which I am of two winds is this:
>
> Consider this input:
>
> =head2 Turn-Ons
>
> I like harpsichord music.
>
>
> Should that produce something minimal like this?
>
> <head2>Turn-Ons</head>
> <para>I like harpsichord music.</para>
>
> Or something like this?
>
> <section2>
> <head2>Turn-Ons</head>
> <para>I like harpsichord music.</para>
> </section2>
>
> The first way /merely/ recapitulates the Pod, which is fine by me.
> But would anyone like the latter? What are the practical benefits of it?
I vote for the former, even though I prefer the latter. The transformation
is simple enough to become standard a Pod/SAX filter used only when
required[*].
As long as we're breaking the string-of-pearls nature for =head1/=head2,
why not change the nested format to be <section2>/<title>, or even a
nested and DocBookish <section>/<section>/<title>? SMOP, of course. ;-)
Z.
*: ...assuming that the first style is actually used somewhere meaningful[**];
otherwise the transform should be inverted.
**: I don't think we've mentioned round-tripping Pod through a SAX interface.
The minimal SAXification certainly aids this process...
