The Examples Speak For Themselves

In the previous two blogs, I've talked about the problems of XML and how Candle Markup addresses these problems. In this blog, I'll show you how Candle Markup can effectively express different kinds of structured data. "A good example is the best sermon." So I'll let the examples speak for themselves.
 
(due to the limited editing capabilities of Blogger.com, I have to post the examples at CandleScript.net)

Example 1: A Simple Note

Example 2: An iCanlendar Record

Example 3: An HTML5 SVG Example

Example 4: An MathML Example

Example 5: A Sample Graph in DOT language

Example 6: An Example in POV-Ray SDL

Example 7: An Example in RDF Turtle Notation

Example 8: A Configuration File in Lua

 

From the examples, you can see that Candle Markup has a very expressive syntax and flexible data model, with which you can easily invent your own pseudo DSLs to suit your application and still enjoy all the benefits of a general markup format. Just to reiterate the advantages of a general markup format over a domain-specific format:

• easier-to-learn: your application user do not have to learn all kinds of abstract domain-specific syntaxes;
• easier-to-use: you'll be able to leverage the tools that supports advanced editing, validation, refactoring on the general markup format;
• easier-to-process: you'll be able to use advanced scripting features, like schema, path selection, query, transformation and CRUD update on the general format;

Take note that the examples are created to demonstrate the syntactic expressiveness and readability of Candle Markup, rather than to set good examples for application or domain modeling in Candle. When you invent a very terse representation, it might not have a very structured data model behind it. For example, the math formula like x "=" +{ "-"b "+-" sqrt{b sup 2 "-" 4 a c}} over _{2 a} might be very readable but can be hard to process with flat lists of nodes. A more structured representation could be:

math {
  in {
    i{x}
    divide {
      plus-minus {
        minus { i{b} }
        root {
          minus {
            power { i{b} 2 }
            times { 4 i{a} i{c} }
          }
        }
      }
      times { 2 i{a} }
    }
  }
}

No matter you prefer a terse format or a structured format, the power is now in your hand. Candle supports both equally well, and can easily transform one into the other.