Base new module format on XML - RFC and some questions

[Dennis Wassel]

Hi list,

thanks for your comments - and thanks Jerry for prodding me!

To sum things up:
There is almost an unanimous consensus against XML, mostly due to the
fact that a new format does not by itsself fix the issues with
gfortran's module handling, and because of fears that adding another
dependency might affect test coverage or create tricky issues. That's
all comprehensible, so I won't argue, even though some sorely comments
tempt me.

I had another shot at trying to understand module.c, but there's just
too much of it and I fail to get the greater picture. The "64 million
dollar question" remains unanswered: Does the module stuff have to do
anything more than translate between a gfc_symtree and a file?

One of Jerry's comments is particularly good food for thought, I think:
> Why does the module file need to be expressive?  Fortran source is already as expressive as is needed. No need to create a new programming language.

Very true! This got me thinking why module files aren't just
(annotated, stripped-down, whatever) Fortran source code files? When
the current s-expr format is actually less concise than the source,
what is the point?
Anyway, I guess the consensus to stick with the current format is
pretty strong, so I'll search for easier pickings, when I find time -
the current incarnation of module.c is just too hard for me.

Cheers,
Dennis