Re: [Psgml-devel] Re: Key sequence C-c C-f C-e uses invalid prefix characters

[Ron Ross]

"Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/emacs/address@hidden> writes:

>> Richard Stallman wrote:
>> >     Dave Love wrote something earlier about including PSGML in the Emacs 
>> >     distribution. I don't know the status of this. But it could either be 
>> >     as a replacement of the current sgml-mode or in addition to it. 
>> 
>> Replacement. I've been advocating this ever since psgml reached stable
>> *years* ago. sgml-mode alone is useless and vastly confusing for the
>> beginner, as it precisely does *NOT* implement SGML editing, only the
>> recognition of pointy brackets -- useful 15 years ago but not now!
>
> Last I heard (and that was before Dave's patches were incorporated),
> PSGML did not deal well at all with the situation where the DTD is
> unknown, which happens to be the standard case for me.  This is
> why I spent some time improving sgml-mode.
> I believe that Dave's patches do bring PSGML to the point where it
> is about as good as sgml-mode when editing text without DTD, so maybe
> it is now good enough to replace sgml-mode.

I must agree with Peter Flynn and question whether Emacs' default
*sgml*-mode be one that functions /a priori/ without a DTD. It's almost
a contradiction in terms.

>
>> Please. In perpetuating sgml-mode we are making the Emacs distro look
>> very silly.
>
> Given the amount of complaint about PSGML "not indenting and not
> highlighting" we have seen on gnu.emacs.help I'd say that the lack
> of DTD-less support has been a problem for a long time now.
> Yes, PSGML should be included in Emacs, and as soon as it truly
> works as well (no matter how poor that is) as sgml-mode in
> DTD-less settings, we can and should replace sgml-mode with PSGML.
>
> But the DTD-less setting is very important.

The indentation and syntax-highlighting issue should really be
distinguished from the DTD issue, which in turn covers the separate
issues of working without a DTD and working with the new XML apparatus
(schemas and namespaces) related to DTDs.

DTD-less editing seems to me to be specific to a small subset of XML
files. As long as we are considering a consolidation of markup language
support in Emacs, perhaps psgml could become the default SGML/XML mode,
and then another mode - whether derived from psgml or from the current
sgml packages - could be made a available for DTD-less editing
(something like "sgml/xml-lite"). The elisp namespace problem would then
be solved by leaving psgml with the "sgml/xml"-prefixed symbols and then
developing a new namespace for the qndml (quick-n-diry-ml-mode ;-).

Ron