Re: RFC: output as tables

[Ben Pfaff]

John Darrington <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Jun 03, 2008 at 10:24:04PM -0700, Ben Pfaff wrote:

[...]

>      If done properly, it should be a rather small amount of code per
>      procedure, easier to write than the corresponding formatting code
>      we have now, and much more flexible.
>      
> I think that if the system is designed carefully, then this "code"
> need be merely a bunch of metadata.  In other words, put all the code
> in the output engine, and make it flexible enough to be controlled by
> some variables which are contained within or associated with the
> relation.  Encouraging procedure authors to write their own programs
> for controlling the display, I think would be a bad thing.

I agree that this is a situation to aspire to.  My proposal is
not yet concrete enough to figure out whether it is practical in
every case.
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org