Re: Languages (was Re: Forms support in clients)
Karl Auerbach (karl@cavebear.com)
Mon, 3 Oct 94 22:33:05 PDT
> > Keep in mind that as long as the document format is "non-procedural,"
> > that is, less expressive than a turing machine, you maintain the
> > possiblity of translating the document to another representation
> > reliably.
>
> We're clearly dealing with different goals here. I want a document that
> is able to ask you questions, and execute semi-arbitrary processes based
> on your answers. If you state the goal that broadly, you really do need
> this kind of expressiveness, and you definitely sacrifice
> translatability, as you point out.
And I want scripts I can send to a server to perform various search
and aggregation tasks. ("How" is yet to be determined -- nothing like
leaving the hard part until last?)
It would be nice if the language (or set of languages) were the same,
although there might be a different set of base primitives.
--karl--