Re: XSLT syntax

[Daniel Mahler <dmahler@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I just meant that XML/SGML tags
are a bit to verbose for programming.
They were designed to be embedded in documents
the bulk of which is text.
XSLT scripts are all tags.
Unlike markup, translaformations have to be read,
written and maintained by people.
I appreciate the usefulness of transformations being distributed
in an XML compliant form, but I do not think they should be written that
way.
For a programming language,
some kind of bracket is a better delimiter than an end tag
(or just use indentation as in python and a few functional languages).
Positional parameter passing is usually better than passing
labeled parameters (though this is good as an option, as in lisp)

What I have inmind is instead of
<a x=1 y=2>
  <b w=3 c=4>
     <c/>
  </b>
</a>

either
a (1, 2) {
  b (3, 4) {
    c()
  } 
}

or

(a (1 2)
   (b (3 4)
      (c)))

or even just

a 1 2
  b 3 4
    c

depending on you taste in languages.

As can be seen my main concer is the lexical/surface syntax
rather than any semantic or structural properties of XSLT.
This should make it possible to have XML based tools
do the conversions.

Daniel

Didier PH Martin wrote:
> 
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> I cannot personnaly answer to this question. I would have first to figure
> what you mean by concise.
> 
> regards
> Didier PH Martin
> mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.netfolder.com
> 
> -----Original Message-----

> 
> Is there likely to be a more concise (non XML/SGML)
> syntax standard for specifying transformations?
> Something that could be compiled into XSLT.
> 
> Daniel


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