CCML, CML, Etc Markup specifications/standards

So, first of all let me start this with saying that if there is a more relevant section for this, I'd love it too be moved.




So. With the current rise in ComputerCraft web browsers being created, we need to have a standards created for the markup, obviously it is only effective aslong as people follow it, but it is still something that should be brough up. As all of them share in common an XML format, I propose that we follow the HTML markup specifications as that also adds in interoperaablity with current websites in general. Obviously script tags with type='text/javascript' should and would be ignorned which would also be documented; which is the main purpose of this thread.


I have done the liberty of preparing a post for changes I suggest should be used for a standard like so.

<script> would still define a script tag, but should (will be assumed) use attrib type='text/lua' or whatever the relevant MIME is.
'src' attrib would still be supported, and would fetch the contents of the script.

<link> should still be used for CSS and CSS should be used as the main styling method, obviously a standard for CSS would be needed.

attrib 'style' would have the same use-case

Any non-correct attrib or in bad format, SHOULD be ignored.

Possible Standards Location: https://github.com/ccstandards/ccml

Any suggestions, or feedback on this idea are graciously accepted and wanted.

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

In the case of the real web and HTML, I'd agree. Web apps can't be acceptably programmed in markup without a huge mess. But that's because they're doing web apps. Markup is great for just displaying a document. I don't imagine the CC browsers will be doing more than displaying documents. At least I hope no one tries to make web apps with CC browsers…

ElvishJerricco, on 03 December 2014 - 07:55 PM said:

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

In the case of the real web and HTML, I'd agree. Web apps can't be acceptably programmed in markup without a huge mess. But that's because they're doing web apps. Markup is great for just displaying a document. I don't imagine the CC browsers will be doing more than displaying documents. At least I hope no one tries to make web apps with CC browsers…

Which is why sticking to an existing language that could be used for the outside world makes sense.

Yea, good idea. awsumben13 and I have had a few conversations of the sort, but I think creating an actual standards would be the best idea.

RainbowDashDC, on 03 December 2014 - 06:57 PM said:

I propose that we follow the HTML markup specifications as that also adds in interoperaablity with current websites in general.

That's really not the way to do it. The reason I made CCML rather than just using HTML is because normal websites have text of all different sizes, the screen size is fastly different, it's pointless to use PNG, JPEG etc. given the size of the pixels and limited colour pallette and many more reasons.

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

Yea. Personally, I think we should stick to CCML. I am happy to make the specifications a public decision, but I don't think we should have two marginally different languages.

RainbowDashDC, on 03 December 2014 - 10:09 PM said:

ElvishJerricco, on 03 December 2014 - 07:55 PM said:

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

In the case of the real web and HTML, I'd agree. Web apps can't be acceptably programmed in markup without a huge mess. But that's because they're doing web apps. Markup is great for just displaying a document. I don't imagine the CC browsers will be doing more than displaying documents. At least I hope no one tries to make web apps with CC browsers…

Which is why sticking to an existing language that could be used for the outside world makes sense.

Some basic web apps would work to a certain extent, but yea, the main use would be documents.

Using standard HTML is definitely the wrong choice to make. I don't want to sound pushy or anything, but awsumben13 and I basically get to decide which format to take. I can tell you right now that I won't be deciding on HTML.

We're going to need a decent way to actually define the standard. There needs to be some website that hosts a standards spec that outlines the language format, the defined tags, and the functionality and attributes for each tag.

I'm interested to see where this is going to go. Should we stop at CCML, or maybe create standards for other formats too?

oeed, on 03 December 2014 - 10:44 PM said:

Yea, good idea. awsumben13 and I have had a few conversations of the sort, but I think creating an actual standards would be the best idea.

RainbowDashDC, on 03 December 2014 - 06:57 PM said:

I propose that we follow the HTML markup specifications as that also adds in interoperaablity with current websites in general.

That's really not the way to do it. The reason I made CCML rather than just using HTML is because normal websites have text of all different sizes, the screen size is fastly different, it's pointless to use PNG, JPEG etc. given the size of the pixels and limited colour pallette and many more reasons.

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

Yea. Personally, I think we should stick to CCML. I am happy to make the specifications a public decision, but I don't think we should have two marginally different languages.

RainbowDashDC, on 03 December 2014 - 10:09 PM said:

ElvishJerricco, on 03 December 2014 - 07:55 PM said:

Requiem, on 03 December 2014 - 07:45 PM said:

In my opinion, if we are going to have a universal language, we need to make a new language altogether.

In the case of the real web and HTML, I'd agree. Web apps can't be acceptably programmed in markup without a huge mess. But that's because they're doing web apps. Markup is great for just displaying a document. I don't imagine the CC browsers will be doing more than displaying documents. At least I hope no one tries to make web apps with CC browsers…

Which is why sticking to an existing language that could be used for the outside world makes sense.

Some basic web apps would work to a certain extent, but yea, the main use would be documents.

Using standard HTML is definitely the wrong choice to make. I don't want to sound pushy or anything, but awsumben13 and I basically get to decide which format to take. I can tell you right now that I won't be deciding on HTML.

This is exactly why I choose to make this thread, historically an outside source monitors or controls how it should take shape (in a form merging others ideas) That is why I said I propose we use HTML, that is not final nor was it meant to be, in the end yes you guys currently control the market for how the markup will/should be, but it should all be very well specified in one specification to prevent compatibility issues aswell as allow others input onto how it should work.

ElvishJerricco, on 03 December 2014 - 10:59 PM said:

We're going to need a decent way to actually define the standard. There needs to be some website that hosts a standards spec that outlines the language format, the defined tags, and the functionality and attributes for each tag.

I quickly threw together a git for a possible location and host of any standards made for CC Protocol/Markups/etc, using github allows great documentation in Markdown.

CCMLs is currently: https://github.com/ccstandards/ccml

ooed, and awsumben13 you are both welcome to PM me your Github info so i can add you guys to the Organization for CCML markup if wanted.

Much as I agree that it would be wonderful to have standards, I feel the issue is that few people would follow them. The one issue with the CC forums (otherwise you guys are great :)/>) is the lack of 'standards'. For instance oeed's Bedrock framework is the be all and end all of all UI frameworks, no one needs to write one again, but people will. I don't think this is a bad thing, people want to write their own code, but there is a lot of duplication of effort, with no real forwards progress.

I guess this isn't dissimilar to the OS Graveyard topic, I think standards would be wonderful, but only if people listened and followed them.

SquidDev, on 04 December 2014 - 06:26 PM said:

Much as I agree that it would be wonderful to have standards, I feel the issue is that few people would follow them. The one issue with the CC forums (otherwise you guys are great :)/>) is the lack of 'standards'. For instance oeed's Bedrock framework is the be all and end all of all UI frameworks, no one needs to write one again, but people will. I don't think this is a bad thing, people want to write their own code, but there is a lot of duplication of effort, with no real forwards progress.

I guess this isn't dissimilar to the OS Graveyard topic, I think standards would be wonderful, but only if people listened and followed them.

Well, it worked in the real world so it's still worth a shot atleast!

Things like Bedrock aren't really useful to standardize on. Things like this, intercommunication data structures and protocols, are. I don't really understand why you'd need a github organization and repo for just one document, though.

Perhaps it's time to make a "Community Standards" sticky someplace with links to all of the RFC posts that are well-written. I'd love to see a markup language RFC posted, perhaps using CCML? It would be great if oeed could write up the specifications he's been using and submit it as an RFC. For reference, the RFC posts have been the way we've done this in the past. They've worked pretty well, without any real need for anything else.

For instance, LyqydOS currently implements the metadata standard that I proposed a while back, and nsh uses the TRoR standard. I also plan to implement support for AmandaC's original metadata standard proposal specifications at some point.

Lyqyd, on 04 December 2014 - 07:00 PM said:

Things like Bedrock aren't really useful to standardize on. Things like this, intercommunication data structures and protocols, are. I don't really understand why you'd need a github organization and repo for just one document, though.

Perhaps it's time to make a "Community Standards" sticky someplace with links to all of the RFC posts that are well-written. I'd love to see a markup language RFC posted, perhaps using CCML? It would be great if oeed could write up the specifications he's been using and submit it as an RFC. For reference, the RFC posts have been the way we've done this in the past. They've worked pretty well, without any real need for anything else.

For instance, LyqydOS currently implements the metadata standard that I proposed a while back, and nsh uses the TRoR standard. I also plan to implement support for AmandaC's original metadata standard proposal specifications at some point.

That seems like a good idea. I'll take a look in to how to create one this afternoon. I might make a few improvements to Quest first just to prevent having to change the standards too soon.

I think a general standards topic would be good too. Although at this stage the only formats I can think of are NFT and NFP/Paint, but I'm sure there are others too.

oeed, on 04 December 2014 - 09:09 PM said:

Although at this stage the only formats I can think of are NFT and NFP/Paint, but I'm sure there are others too.

The NFP format has room for improvement. It's good, but it could be better.

theoriginalbit, on 05 December 2014 - 03:52 AM said:

oeed, on 04 December 2014 - 09:09 PM said:

Although at this stage the only formats I can think of are NFT and NFP/Paint, but I'm sure there are others too.

The NFP format has room for improvement. It's good, but it could be better.

Oh I'm sure there could be a better image format. It's more than it's just commonly used. Rather than people making their own format or trying to figure out how to use those formats it makes sense to define how to read, write and the file structure.

oeed, on 05 December 2014 - 04:48 AM said:

Oh I'm sure there could be a better image format. It's more than it's just commonly used. Rather than people making their own format or trying to figure out how to use those formats it makes sense to define how to read, write and the file structure.

well the standard could easily support detection and conversion, and who knows, nitro could be open to alterations to support a standard as well.

Lyqyd, on 04 December 2014 - 07:00 PM said:

Things like Bedrock aren't really useful to standardize on. Things like this, intercommunication data structures and protocols, are. I don't really understand why you'd need a github organization and repo for just one document, though.

Perhaps it's time to make a "Community Standards" sticky someplace with links to all of the RFC posts that are well-written. I'd love to see a markup language RFC posted, perhaps using CCML? It would be great if oeed could write up the specifications he's been using and submit it as an RFC. For reference, the RFC posts have been the way we've done this in the past. They've worked pretty well, without any real need for anything else.

For instance, LyqydOS currently implements the metadata standard that I proposed a while back, and nsh uses the TRoR standard. I also plan to implement support for AmandaC's original metadata standard proposal specifications at some point.

Following how PHP Hosts its standards, and for the chance I write my own standards regarding ccLinux.

As far as things that need to be standardized go, I think we need a standardized compression format so that multi-file things can be distributed. I've been using .zip.base64 with great success, and that should even be capable of being pasted on pastebin.