| Title: | DOCUMENT T1.0 |
| Notice: | **New notesfile (DOCUMENT.NOTE) now available (see note 897)** |
| Moderator: | CLOSET::ADLER |
| Created: | Mon Feb 09 1987 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Oct 31 1991 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 897 |
| Total number of notes: | 4397 |
Since I've entered opinions on how DOUCUMENT ought to work, it seemed
that there are some in the community who might be interested in
how it REALLY works. (I'm certainly interested and understanding
Document might make using Document easier for me.)
The kinds of questions I have about how things work are questions
like what compilation paradigms are used for tag translation, a
formal syntactical language definition, input-blackbox-output flows,
interface specifications, ...; basically, what are the fundamental
design assumptions of VAX Document?
So to the real question: Are things like the SRM, the SRD, internals
guides, and functional specs available anywhere so that someone can learn
about how Document ticks? Obviously, these are things that should
never leave the building. If they aren't available, is there any
internals documentation available?
BobW
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 442.1 | tag designer's guide coming | VAXUUM::KOHLBRENNER | Fri May 29 1987 13:06 | 20 | |
I'll speak only for the tag translator.
It was written by a former employee and EXTENSIVELY rewritten by
me as I learned what it did (and didn't) do. There was nothing
but the Pascal code, which was largely uncommented. It is now
extensively commented, but there is still no formal description
other than the Pascal sources.
We have a "tag designer's guide" in the writing stage, which documents
what a tag designer needs to know about how the tag translator works.
(Number of passes, when files get opened/read/written/closed,
how to create/use tag definitions, the symbol table, the data types
of string and counter, tag hiding, aliases, compression of tag
definitions, debugging aids, etc. It also contains a reference
section describing all the built-in tags.) This document should
be available in a few months.
I don't imagine that we will have a description of the implementation
method for a long time to come.
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| 442.2 | also more internals | CLOSET::ANKLAM | Fri May 29 1987 18:03 | 8 | |
The internals documentation will have more details on the workings
of the system also, at least to the extent that it's necessary
for us to describe how to add support for different output devices.
Adding a device takes you through all the hoops you don't go through
when you're trying to write tags.
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