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Subject: Re: [geda-user] A fileformat library
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From: John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com>
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Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 15:58:17 -0700
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On Dec 24, 2015, at 8:18 AM, Peter Stuge (peter AT stuge DOT se) [via =
geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:

> John Doty wrote:
>> Except that the user needs to be comfortable with SQL.
>=20
> Or anything that can sit on top.
>=20
>=20
>> With our .sch format, users choose whatever language they are
>> comfortable with from a long list: AWK, Python, Perl, =85
>=20
> I'm not at all comfortable with our .sch format. It appears to
> create structure using very strange positional-dependent semantics.
> Or is that .sym?

They are the same. But the syntax is trivial:

<tag> <required arguments>
[
<optional attached data>
]
{
<optional attached objects>
}

Text is slightly exceptional but not hard.

In my mind, I see perfectly sensible s-records:

(<tag> <required arguments> (<optional attached data>) (<optional =
attached objects> ))

S-records, of course, are famous as a general-purpose representation of =
structure. But .sch is easier to parse AWK-style or scanf-style. Pretty =
much anything can do that without extra layers of lasagna code.

In addition, we have structure in another dimension through source=3D =
attributes in symbols.

>=20
>=20
>> I want to liberate users, not control them.
>=20
> The argument doesn't hold because users must learn the .sch format
> in order to work with it by hand. This remains true for any format.

Except that records delimited by newlines containing fields delimited by =
whitespace is a far more common and transparent convention than others.

>=20
> One important point is that reusing any existing representation makes
> it more likely for users to already be familiar with that format or
> language, as opposed to the 0 probability for gEDA-proprietary (open)
> formats.

Nonsense. There=92s nothing gEDA-proprietary about records separated by =
newlines.

> Structure must still be understood, but that should be more
> in the application domain (EE) rather than in the data storage domain.

Yes. And that=92s why the other named things like YAML, JSON, S-record, =
etc. don=92t solve any problem that we actually have.

>=20
>=20
> //Peter

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
jpd AT noqsi DOT com



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