(dsssl) OpenJade2002 (was The Future of DSSSL: Concrete proposals)

["Paul Tyson" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Javier's outline of work is excellent.

The DSSSL community has a lot of creative people who have well-developed
ideas and specialized areas of interest.  I think we can only make progress
by focusing on a few well-defined goals, and by following some simple
principles.  In the end, everyone will get what they want out of it, but
first we have to build a good foundation.

One thing we should agree to focus on is the standards themselves,
particularly regarding SGML, DSSSL, and groves.  Certainly these *could*
have been written differently, or covered more, or anything else, but the
fact is they didn't. If we focus on implementing the standards *as they
are*, we will do more good than if we decide some aspects of the standards
really shouldn't be that way,or "aren't useful".  For example, one might not
like the fully-parenthesized prefix notation of DSSSL, but that's the way
the standard is, and let's not waste any time discussing it.  Groves and
grove plans are not as "easy to understand" as the DOM, but the fact is the
DOM isn't mentioned in SGML or DSSSL, so let's just get good at groves.

Some features of the standards can't be appreciated until you have a good
working experience with them.  For instance, almost every new user is put
off by the Scheme-like notation of DSSSL.  But several experienced users
have said that they have come to appreciate the functional, side-effect-free
aspect of DSSSL.

Javier also pointed out the need for some kind of administrative control.
Can some people with more open source development comment on how to set this
up?

Ken Holman said quite a while ago that the topic of this thread, "The Future
of DSSSL" could be misinterpreted to mean "The Future of the DSSSL
Standard", and that this is not the proper forum for such a discussion.
I've suggested the name "OpenJade2002" as a more politically correct title
for this thread.  I would also submit this as a candidate name of this
project, because I think this initiative is substantial enough to deserve a
name that distinguishes it from the existing openjade.

Thank you, Javier, for your excellent contributions so far, and I look
forward to working with you and the DSSSL community in 2002.

--Paul

Paul Tyson, Principal Consultant                   Precision Documents
paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx              http://precisiondocuments.com
     "The art and science of document engineering."



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