Re: [9fans] don't shoot me

[Geoff Collyer <geoff@collyer.net>]

Labelling is compatible with my suggestion.  One possibility would be
to use NOV extension-field syntax without the colons:

address	street 600 Mountain Ave.	city Murray Hill	state NJ	postcode 07974-2070	country USA

or something that more obviously permits arbitrary substructure:

address
	country USA
	postcode 07974-2070
	state NJ
	city Murray Hill
	street
		number 600
		name Mountain Ave.

or even reflects the geographical hierarchy of the address:

address
	country USA
		postcode 07974-2070
		state NJ
			city Murray Hill
				street Mountain Ave.
					number 600
						building 2
							section C
								room 501
									person G. R. Emlin

None of these possibilities require the visible punctuation of either
XML or Lisp, and I've come to appreciate the lack of visual noise.
Presotto's wonderful pseudo-XML,

<message type=answer><sentence><word><pronoun flavor=personal pos=subject>I</pronoun></word><word>
<verb flavor=active type=contraction>haven't</verb></word><noun-phrase><word><article flavor=indefinite>
an</article></word><word><noun pos=object>opinion</noun></word></noun-phrase><diacritical>.</diaciritical>
</sentence></message>

strikes me as JCL for the 21st century.