[feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Blake Shaw]

Hiya Guilers,

Having just wrapped up the Scribble Jam project I mentioned in my
Guix Days talk on the Guile Docs makeover, I'm getting back to the
topic of the documentation. I figured this is a good excuse to finally
move my hiney and finally do something I've been putting off for the
simple reason I find writing HTML a bore -- creating a blog where
I can collect all these thoughts and tips to help improve the Guix/Guile
knowledge ecosystem.

So of course, I figured I will try to make the web process less boring
by doing it in Guile, and naturally went to the SXML docs, as I've had
some ideas for a Guile extension that combines ideas from structured
writing to make an easy and fun documentation and tutorial system
that can be queried from the Guile repl. I could kill two bird with one
stone! So I thought...

This lead me to spend the last two nights learning XSLT and XHTML.
I read Peter Bex's dynamic web tutorial, and then started hitting the
XSLT textbooks. And after two nights and several hundred loc, I had
as you may imagine, a poor skeleton of a website from 1995.

Jeez, I thought, how much work are they doing to write the Guix website
in Guile? They're really sticking to XHTML?

Usually I'm not the type that heads straight to examples. I typically
want to get away from the world with something new, try to study it on
my own, and then later look to what others are doing. In this case, that
lead me to try to poke at figuring out an sxml->html transformation
myself, digging through Oleg Kisleyovs papers, and various ancient texts
on the merits of XHTML, XSLT, XPath, etc... but it became clear that XML
really isn't just a simple markup format that can be learned quickly, and
my total lack of web skills weren't going to ramp up quickly enough to go
from a "My First Geocities" aesthetic to the beautiful read I had been
scheming up in my imagination.

Finally I caved and decided to look at the Bootstrappable source code, and
voila! (haunt html) provides sxml->html... the piece of the puzzle I was
missing. Massive, near comical, relief.

I'd like to suggest that, with Dave Thompson's approval, we could
incorporate
this function into Guile as I can imagine others going through a similar
process. SXML remains a powerful tool, but without a modern way to get your
results
on screen it can appear archaic.

But also, as someone who doesn't work in web *at all*, I don't really know
how
often HTML changes and how much of a burden the maintenance could be for
the maintainers. So if its likely to become a fussy hairball, I understand.
But I do
think it could be an extremely helpful addition to (sxml simple), which
also is in
need of documentation, so if folks would agree this would be useful I'd be
happy
to, in turn, provide documentation for the currently missing SXML page,
covering all the functions in (sxml simple).

WDYT?

ez,
b


--
Blake Shaw
Director, SWEATSHOPPE
sweatshoppe.org
---

Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Luis Felipe]

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Hi Blake,

On Monday, June 27th, 2022 at 06:57, Blake Shaw <blake@sweatshoppe.org> wrote:

> Finally I caved and decided to look at the Bootstrappable source code, and
> voila! (haunt html) provides sxml->html... the piece of the puzzle I was
> missing. Massive, near comical, relief.

Just to mention that there is also htmlprag, from guile-lib (https://www.nongnu.org/guile-lib/doc/ref/htmlprag/).

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Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Blake Shaw]

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Hi Luis,

(copying in Guix as I digress into the subject of a Wiki for Guix & Guile
communities)

Thanks for this! It's cool and I would not have found it without your help.

Which brings up another thing I've been considering working on thats been
discussed in the Guix community: the need for click-to-edit wiki, written
in Guile.

If we had a wiki up, there could be an "HTML" stub, for instance, that
collects links to all projects using HTML in guile. Finding out whats
available would be streamlined, and relatively painless to update and
moderate.

I have some free time for the next month, and should be able to knock out a
basic wiki system in this time (I found what looks like a nice book about
wikis that I could read and use as a guide for implementing it).

Since getting feedback on my presentation for Guix Days, where I think a
lot of good criticism was raised, I've been thinking about ways to organize
contributions to the docs. An idea I've had is to create a wiki that has a
basic system of tags that can link with Mumi so that while folks are
looking things up they can also get a sense if there are "TODOs" concerning
a subject they reading up on, even beyond contributing to the docs. Many
folks have expressed that they want to start chipping in, but aren't quite
sure where to start. Perhaps something like this could help ease that
process, and make updating information more dynamic and less critical than
in the main docs.

Any thoughts?

ez,
b

On Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 20:26 Luis Felipe <luis.felipe.la@protonmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Blake,
>
> On Monday, June 27th, 2022 at 06:57, Blake Shaw <blake@sweatshoppe.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Finally I caved and decided to look at the Bootstrappable source code,
> and
> > voila! (haunt html) provides sxml->html... the piece of the puzzle I was
> > missing. Massive, near comical, relief.
>
> Just to mention that there is also htmlprag, from guile-lib (
> https://www.nongnu.org/guile-lib/doc/ref/htmlprag/).

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RE: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[dsmich]

> From: "Blake Shaw" 
> Subject: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt
html) into guile?
> 
> Since getting feedback on my presentation for Guix Days, where I
think a
 > lot of good criticism was raised, I've been thinking about ways to
organize
 > contributions to the docs. An idea I've had is to create a wiki
that has a
 > basic system of tags that can link with Mumi so that while folks
are
 > looking things up they can also get a sense if there are "TODOs"
concerning
 > a subject they reading up on, even beyond contributing to the docs.
Many
 > folks have expressed that they want to start chipping in, but
aren't quite
 > sure where to start. Perhaps something like this could help ease
that
 > process, and make updating information more dynamic and less
critical than
 > in the main docs.
> 
 > Any thoughts?

Spam! Spam! Spam!

Please plan on having some kind of controls in place to prevent
spammers.

-Dale

Re: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Maxime Devos]

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Blake Shaw schreef op wo 29-06-2022 om 01:34 [+0700]:
> Which brings up another thing I've been considering working on thats
> been discussed in the Guix community: the need for click-to-edit
> wiki, written in Guile. [...]

I don't think ‘written in Guile’ has been discussed?

Also, I don't see the point in writing our own wiki software in Guile
when there's already plenty of Wiki software in existence with lots of
tools for moderation, version control, backups, lots of testing, etc.
Why not reuse pre-existing work instead of reinventing the wheel (likely
poorly, at least at first)?

Greetings,
Maxime.

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Re: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Maxime Devos]

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Maxime Devos schreef op di 28-06-2022 om 22:13 [+0200]:
> Blake Shaw schreef op wo 29-06-2022 om 01:34 [+0700]:
> > Which brings up another thing I've been considering working on
> thats
> > been discussed in the Guix community: the need for click-to-edit
> > wiki, written in Guile. [...]
> 
> I don't think ‘written in Guile’ has been discussed?
> 
> Also, I don't see the point in writing our own wiki software in Guile
> when there's already plenty of Wiki software in existence with lots
> of
> tools for moderation, version control, backups, lots of testing, etc.
> Why not reuse pre-existing work instead of reinventing the wheel
> (likely
> poorly, at least at first)?
> 

(TBC: you can, if you want)

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Re: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[bokr]

On +2022-06-28 22:13:58 +0200, Maxime Devos wrote:
> Blake Shaw schreef op wo 29-06-2022 om 01:34 [+0700]:
> > Which brings up another thing I've been considering working on thats
> > been discussed in the Guix community: the need for click-to-edit
> > wiki, written in Guile. [...]
> 
> I don't think ‘written in Guile’ has been discussed?
> 
> Also, I don't see the point in writing our own wiki software in Guile
> when there's already plenty of Wiki software in existence with lots of
> tools for moderation, version control, backups, lots of testing, etc.
> Why not reuse pre-existing work instead of reinventing the wheel (likely
> poorly, at least at first)?
>

E.g.? :

    https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server/index.html

Not guile, but close in the family tree :)
(I don't know how good their server stuff is, but
I get the impression they consider it production quality)

> Greetings,
> Maxime.
--
Regards,
Bengt Richter

Re: Wiki && Re: [feature request] merge sxml->html from (haunt html) into guile?

[Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Maxime Devos <maximedevos@telenet.be> writes:

> Blake Shaw schreef op wo 29-06-2022 om 01:34 [+0700]:
>> Which brings up another thing I've been considering working on thats
>> been discussed in the Guix community: the need for click-to-edit
>> wiki, written in Guile. [...]
>
> I don't think ‘written in Guile’ has been discussed?
>
> Also, I don't see the point in writing our own wiki software in Guile
> when there's already plenty of Wiki software in existence with lots of
> tools for moderation, version control, backups, lots of testing, etc.
> Why not reuse pre-existing work instead of reinventing the wheel (likely
> poorly, at least at first)?

There are at least two good reason for re-inventing the wheel:

- learning the domain
- experimenting with how the ways to a good implementation differ in another language

If those were rejected out of hand, most existing wiki software would
have never been written.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein,
ohne es zu merken.
draketo.de

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