Re: wishes for next Lout

[Ian Jackson]

basile starynkevitch writes ("Re: wishes for next Lout"):
> In my opinion, the problem already exists with the existing @Filter
> capability. After all, I could have a @Filter invoking a shell, and
> this is nearly the same as a @Pinclude primitive.

I've just looked up the @Filter feature, and you're right.

This is a Bad Thing.  This feature should only be available if you
invoke Lout in an `unsafe' mode, and the default should be to invoke
it in a safe mode.

Otherwise there is no safe way to format documents supplied by other
people.

...
> I believe that Lout could be viewed as document format.  [...]
> I would prefer to write in my document
> 
> @LispEval{ (car '(a b)) }
...
> Lisp example:  (car '(a b))   -> a
> 
> (with fancy fonts, etc...). Behind the scenes, the (car '(a b)) is
> passed to a Lisp interpreter, and (at document formatting time) it
> returns a. Both the expression and its result are suitable transformed
> into Lout.

This is NOT what a document format should be.

I wish people would pause for a bit before deciding how neat it would
be for documents to be able to contain arbitrary programs !

Remember the Word virus, folks ?

Ian.