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Re: h e l p on grammars



Mariusz Nowostawski wrote:
> It simply "delegates" the resolution to the human user ;o)

See my reply in the other message; but I also like this ways of stating
it:)

> Suggestion: if the sablecc project is really becoming a "community"
> effort, what about setting up a documentation directory on CVS, which
> would contain the detailed  up-to-date documentation for SableCC?
> The thesis itself would be a great starting point, what do you think
> Etienne?

It could effectively be a good starting point, but I would have to make
some initial minor modifications, like changing the title a little, so
that to make clear that this derived document is NOT the Master thesis I
submitted to McGill (or it would be a lie;-).

Personally, I would suggest starting a simple FAQ, before getting
involved in a bigger project.  Specially that SableCC 3.x will introduce
many new features and probably some SalbeCC language/grammar changes
[automatic conversion tools 2.x->3.x provided].  So, starting the bigger
project now would be wasting some precious effort for documenting an
almost outdated SableCC version...

>...  What others think?
> There are two possible systems to use (as far as I can see it):
> * LaTeX (from which PDF, HTML, Postscript could be generated), and
> * Docstyle (XML-based system), from which TeX, PDF, HTML could be
>   generated.

The current Thesis was written in LaTeX, but if there exist good XML
equivalent offering [supporting tables, figures, and so on], and if
there's a very dedicated volunteer to do the translation, I would not
object to it.  But as I said, this can wait for another year easily
(which would also give time for the XML tools to mature a little more).

> This "subproject" could include compiled FAQ and Wishlists sources, so the
> generated documentation could contain it all.

I totally agree with managing the documentation in CVS.  Maybe all
documentation could reside in a standalone "doc" CVS module.

> What do you think? What
> are the "legal" issues with that, Etienne? I mean, if we would like to use
> your thesis as a starting point we would need to make it LGPLed, I guess?
> Or the GNU licenses differ for documentation and for software?

Personally, I would suggest to put all documentation under the new GNU
FDL (Free Documentation License), which was designed specially for such
documentation.  I would have to spend a little time reading and
understanding the license though.  [I do not like to use a license
before understanding it...]

Etienne
-- 
Etienne M. Gagnon                                    egagnon@j-meg.com
SableVM:                                       http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC:                                       http://www.sablecc.org/