Michael Fogus <mefo...@gmail.com> writes: > Data formats do not exist in a vacuum. They are parsed by languages. > Some may have a fine-grained distinction between lists, arrays/vectors > and sets and some may not.
The concern I have is for someone wanting to define a format atop EDN -- or, to put it differently, to define a schema for it. If we want to define a structure to be represented in EDN such as a list of a person's favorite colors, on what basis would the schema author choose between list and vector notation? Is there a higher-level abstract type that he specify and require that a conforming processor accept either a list or vector literal? Even if he could mandate that, say, the favorite color list is of type "sequence" -- listed in descending order of preference -- then an author creating the EDN to represent such a person again has to make a choice between a list and a vector, again without a clear basis for his decision. As an appeal to prior art, Rivest's "S-Expressions" Internet-Draft¹ used only a single list structure, though it does define three different encodings for that structure. Footnotes: ¹ http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Sexp.txt -- Steven E. Harris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
