[OLPC-devel] Markdown

[Dan Kohn]

> * Target format: The current conclusion is that both eBooks and OEPC
> articles will be written in a variant of Markdown, which we're calling
> Markenstein. I have a working draft of a parser for this language  
> written in
> Python, using the Martel parser generator; my parser is available as
> markenstein.py in the Markenstein directory of my git repository.  
> I'm also
> attempting to learn to use BisonGen and see if it's possible to  
> recode the
> parser in its EBNF-derived format, since it could dramatically  
> increase
> performance while reducing the memory footprint of the parser.

Eric, Markdown [1][2] seems like an excellent choice for it's  
combination of conciseness and expressiveness.  Could you please  
explain your reasoning for developing a variant, rather than just  
using Markdown?

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
[2]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

Separately, you might take a look at Ragel [3] as a useful tool for  
converting from EBNF to C.  The new Ruby web server Mongrel [4] used  
it with a lot of success, to only accept HTTP transactions that are  
permissible according to the ABNF [5].

[3]: http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/thurston/ragel/
[4]: http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/faq.html
[5]: http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/05/post.html

            - dan
-- 
Dan Kohn <mailto:dan at dankohn.com>
<http://www.dankohn.com/>  <tel:+1-415-233-1000>