Document Object Model (DOM)

This would involve writing a DOM binding for Emacs Lisp.

The Document Object Model is a platform- and language-neutral interface that will allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The document can be further processed and the results of that processing can be incorporated back into the presented page.

This binding would present the standard objects and methods to a programmer, doing any necessary conversion from the DOM to the underlying parse representation.

Packages like the Gnus web-based backends could use URL + PARSER + DOM to do all of their work instead of requiring all of Emacs/W3, which they generally care very little about. This could also be used by Emacspeak to do better table reading, etc. It could even do something really ambitious and not render the document visually at all. SGML/HTML/XML to Postscript using the DOM would be tractable as well.

• Is anyone currently working on a DOM binding for Lisp or Scheme? Could base the design of the bindings off of that work. There is a Common Lisp Binding that looks fairly complete.
• Can work on the specification of the bindings before finishing the parser work, but actual implementation would depend greatly on how the parser works.
• What level of conformance to actually shoot for? What things in the DOM recommendation would be strictly impossible in Emacs?
• How realistic is it to expect changes made thru the DOM to immediately reflect themselves in an Emacs buffer?