From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <0bfcbc3bd9938caecb0986b78a4edded@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Higher level document rendering and editing (Was:
	Building GCC)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:43:28 +0200
From: lucio@proxima.alt.za
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> We could store the raw data in binary files and have C programs  
> access the data with a standard interface.

You want the primary abstraction (layer 0, let's say) to be very
similar to the existing "pure text".  Any mark-up becomes a pointer to
an object in a different layer which conveys additional attributes.

It may be sensible to assign the layers as "classes" so that objects
in a particular layer have common properties.  Defining additional
layers provides for new classes, together with the methods that apply
to them.

I'm not sure how you'd recognise mark-up markers, but it will
hopefully be a single in-band escape.  Or maybe there is a better way,
I know Doug Gwyn makes a good case for avoding in-band signalling...

But I seriously think I'm getting into this deeper than I am competent
to.

I'd like to point out, though, that the P9 synthetic filesystem is a
preferable abstraction to a specialised library and in this particular
instance, I would present a complex, marked-up document specifically
as a collection of files in such a synthetic filesystem.

++L