Re: Generating high-level formatting output

[Adam Di Carlo <adam@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Most telling, to my mind, is James Clark's statement (I hope I read
> it right) that he thinks XSLT took all the lessons learnt from the
> 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.  Or are you talking about the jade -> FO ->
backend -> output decoupling that James suggested?

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.  Someone critiqued TeXML but I don't remember that --
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).

Or perhaps you mean XLS-FO ?

> I just hate the idea of DSSSL living on solely in the person of Jade
> running Docbook transformations for Linux documentors. Lets not give
> up on FOs, please!

Well, its curious because you seem to advocate abandoning the DSSSL /
TeX backend in favor of XSL FO?  Personally, I think functional XSL-FO
is still at least 12 months away, and major spec changes are still in
store.

--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>


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