[Icehouse] Re: two Treehouse questions

[Mark Lentczner]

On May 3, 2006, at 8:14 AM, Eric Wald wrote:

> I agree.  The only thing I would do to improve it is to use slashes
> instead of commas, to make the stacks explicit.
>            Initial Tree:  ^1/2/3
>            A Nest:        ^3/2/1

Okay, I see where commas may be confused as delimiters between places  
on the line rather than pieces in the stack.  BUT, the typographer in  
me can't abide slashes inter-mixed with digits: they make the numbers  
harder to read (as the slash takes up lots of ink, and is similar to  
many of the number glyphs...)

Let's see...

	dashes:  ^1-2-3  ^3-2-1
	pluses:  ^1+2+3  ^3+2+1
	colons:  ^1:2:3  ^3:2:1
	tildes:  ^1~2~3  ^3~2~1
	quotes:  ^1'2'3  ^3'2'1
	periods: ^1.2.3  ^3.2.1
	parens:  ^1(2(3  ^3(2(1
	or even: ^1(2(3)) ^3(2(1))
	
Of these, I like pluses both typographically and for the semantic  
"and".  The parenthesis has a sort of nice stacking feel to it but  
seems overly heavy, and more general purpose than needed.  (Plus, if  
you don't include the closers, then all the digits look like they're  
frowning.)

So, I vote for the plus sign as separator between pieces in a stack.

Now, should I submit this standard to the IETF, ISO, ANSI, ECMA, or  
all four?  I'm reserving the upcoming Treehouse+XML format for W3C  
approval....

	- Mark

Mark Lentczner
http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/
markl at glyphic.com