Re: Generating high-level formatting output

["Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Adam Di Carlo writes:
 > > transformation parts of Jade and did it even better. Given this, why
 > > would we not right write a "*ML to LaTeX" converter in XSL?
 > 
 > Basically, abandon the DSSSL pathway for *ML -> TeX ?  I'm not sure
 > what you're proposing.  
What I am saying is that *if* you adopt the approach of "*ML to
high-level LaTeX (or texinfo)" (thereby bypassing FOs), then you might 
as well use XSL

 > Or are you talking about the jade -> FO ->
 > backend -> output decoupling that James suggested?
no, thats a separate (interesting) subject

 > AFAIK, XSLT (the most mature and implemented part of XSL right now) is
 > for DTD-to-DTD conversions, so wouldn't buy us much in XML -> TeX
 > production
no, its a delusion that you cannot write XML to TeX in XSL. You can do 
it two ways
 <xsl:text>\documentclass{foo}</xsl:text>
or
 <documentclass name="foo"/>

In the latter case, you either
 - convert that trivially from < to \ (this is TeXML's approach)
 - process the < stuff directly with TeX. doable, although not 100%
   easy

 > that's one possible pathway (transform, say, Docbook into a DTD which
 > is a straight-shot translation into TeX, namely TeXML, if that indeed
 > is what TeXML is for).
yes, thats works. TeXML would do
 <documentclass name="foo"/>
as
 <cmd name="documentclass" parameter="foo"/>
or the like, so a generic translator is easy

 > Well, its curious because you seem to advocate abandoning the DSSSL /
 > TeX backend in favor of XSL FO? 
no, I am not. although I may if it turns out easier to deal with. If
you want the FO approach, stick with DSSSL. If you want translation to 
a high-level language like LaTeX, and delay the formatting to LaTeX
style sheets, then XSL-which-is-the-child-of-DSSSL (ie its nothing to
be ashamed of) seems a fair way to proceed. Mind you, Jade is probably
_faster_ today than XSL implementations.

Sebastian



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