[MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

[David Singer]

> On 21Sep, 2020, at 9:01 , Adam Twardoch (Lists) <list.adam at twardoch.com> wrote:
> 
> I think that depends on how you define “spec”. I think Markdown is good for the “prose bits”, while there could be something more formal for the structural bits. 
> 
> I think there may be some approaches that are akin to literate programming, where data structures are expressed using a formal notation while explanations are expressed in something prose-like. Those two threads can interweave, and suitable tools can build either human-readable documents or some machine-readable notation. 

We’ve looked at Kaitai as a possible candidate for file-format specs, to replace our somewhat inaccurate SDL. But SDL is C-like and readable; Kaitai is not very readable at all.

> 
> A.
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 21 Sep 2020 at 17:54, Peter Constable <pgcon6 at msn.com> wrote:
> Markdown is a pain for the spec. It's just less of a pain than HTML.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> On Behalf Of Werner LEMBERG
> 
> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2020 7:22 AM
> 
> To: list.adam at twardoch.com
> 
> Cc: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
> 
> Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Those technical documents (the spec plus other documentation) should 
> 
> > be treated like code. On Github, when I go like “well, that bit, 
> 
> > maybe, blah...” on some repo, the maintainer will often say “make a 
> 
> > pull request, then we’ll review it”.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes!  I think that the Markdown format is good enough for the specification; if necessary we could use Pandoc extensions (in addition to what GitHub provides), for example.
> 
> 
> 
> In case it is not sufficient there are easy solutions to improve formatting by adding proper comments here and there that a postprocessor script could handle.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     Werner
> 
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Dave Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple

singer at apple.com