[PRL] Re: prl page

[Dave Herman]

> - If I use DrScheme, can I make a web page by writing some
> S-expressions rather than raw html?

I thought you'd never ask! :)

I write some of my web pages as S-expressions using PLT Scheme. I 
believe Matthias does, too.

You have several options, because there is more than one implementation 
of XML and HTML as S-expressions. PLT Scheme comes with the "xml" and 
"html" collections, but Oleg Kiselyov also has some neat libraries 
called SSAX, which includes an XML-as-sexps library called SXML, and a 
transformation library that does pattern matching on SXML trees and 
works kind of like macros.

     SSAX home page:
     http://ssax.sourceforge.net/

     PLT port of SSAX:
     http://www196.pair.com/lisovsky/xml/ssax/

The reason I like using this library is because for each page (or set of 
similar pages) I design a little data language that best fits that 
particular design, and then I write a transformer to convert the page 
into SXML. (Then the libraries can convert it to XHTML.)

> - Assuming the answer is yes, could you please tell me how to do it?
> I would appriciate if you could give me a sample file, how to compile
> it into html (on Macintosh), which part of the document (in DrScheme
> manual?)  I should read, and how to include the message "powered by
> DrScheme."

I really need to package my libraries up, update them to work with the 
latest version of SSAX, and write some HOWTOs (i.e., exactly what you're 
asking for). I will try to do this soon, and I'll let you know when I do.

Meanwhile, if you want to look at how my pages currently work, have a 
look at:

     The little libraries I've written:
     ~dherman/.www/source/transform.ss
     ~dherman/.www/source/www.ss

     The sources for a couple of my web pages:
     ~dherman/.www/source/index.sxml
     ~dherman/.www/source/code.sxml

     The scripts that generate the XHTML output:
     ~dherman/.www/source/index.scm
     ~dherman/.www/source/code.scm

(There's a readme in that directory but it's completely outdated.) As I 
said, some pieces are kind of hacked together. Undoubtedly it's not all 
self-explanatory, so let me know if you have any questions.

Dave