To XML or not to XML?

[Bastiaan Niels Veelo]

Hi,

I am the author of the bnv_have_qt macro, which is one of the very few 
that have been converted to XML. Although it looks nice, I understand 
from a private conversation with Guido Draheim that the XML initiative 
has been abandoned. If that is the case, I think the best is to convert 
back to the bare-bones m4 format. Before I do that, does anybody here 
have views on the matter?

The problem with today's situation is an inconsistency between this 
archive and Guido's archive on SourceForge 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ac-archive/. Guido is not going to 
support XML, and therefore he carries an out-dated version of my macro.

Bastiaan.

PS. Although XML was supposed to allow automated checking of 
contributions, Guido's argument is that it makes packaging, maintenance 
and distribution more difficult. Would it be an idea to put the 
description of a macro into a separate man-page? That would allow good 
markup both local and on the web (man2html), and follows standard 
documentation customs. It would not be too hard to generate a default 
man-page either, analogously to how HTML pages are generated today.