Consider using Ecmarkdown to write the spec algorithms

[domenic]

I am not sure this is worth it; it would primarily be reasonable to entertain if the automated conversion script could do the initial conversion.

Streams writes all of its algorithms ES-style, just like Web IDL. It does this through a two-stage build pipeline where the second stage runs emu-algify.

This allows the algorithms in streams to be nice and concise. In particular, any ECMAScript abstract operations defined either in ES or in the streams spec itself get automatically linked (without <a> tags needed); several other ES-specific terms also get autolinked.

So far I have noticed a couple downsides:

• Because emu-algify runs after Bikeshed, terms auto-linked by emu-algify do not show up in Bikeshed's appendix of terms used by this specification
• Mixing in Bikeshed auto-links can sometimes be fragile, although it usually works (as seen by the <a idl> in the above-linked snippet.

These could probably be addressed by working more closely with @tabatkins and @bterlson on integrating Ecmarkdown-for-algorithms into Bikeshed.

[tobie]

Would be great to know of @tabatkins' plans with Bikeshed here. One of the points of moving WebIDL to Bikeshed was to make external contributions easier. Having a multi-step pipeline to build the spec won't really help with this imho.

We could discuss f2f via hangouts if that helps.

[tabatkins]

Long-standing plan to include ECmarkup stuff into Bikeshed, but haven't gotten around to writing the code for it yet.

[bterlson]

@tabatkins Let me know if there is anything you need....