Subject: Re: New/old pattern syntax, why can't we have both ? From: Scott Lawton <scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 10:56:00 -0400 |
Quick reply to the thread's originator: if I were designing XSL as a commercial product, I *would* support two syntax options since I agree that both are useful. But XSL is supposed to be a neutral interchange format so two variations are counter-productive. On to the recent thread.... >Mark_Overton@xxxxxxxxx wrote: >> This may be the case now because of the lack of tools, but it absolutely >> will not be in the long run. You will view XSL through some sort of >> abstraction. If this doesn't happen, then XSL is dead. Paul Prescod replied: >XSL has to catch on long before there are widespread GUI tools for it, in >order for it to have critical mass enough to make the GUI tools feasible. >Anyways, why should we force (or "encourage") anyone into using a GUI tool >if they don't want to? How about text-based tools? Wouldn't it make sense to put the task of writing an extra parser (to convert the short form into XML) onto a few tools developers rather than to every XSL developer? >I must admit, I am bothered by the moral absolutism of the complainers. I respectfully submit that there's more to it than that. >I didn't mind the old element-based syntax. It was nice how it reflected >the structure of the document section being matched. If someone wanted to >make usability arguments like that, I would be very receptive and might >well support the element-based syntax. Ah, excellent. OK, start with a blank slate. Let's say we want to generate tags in the output. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just include the literal tags? <HTML> <HEAD> ... Well, we can! (Thanks to the xsl: namespace.) Now, what's the simplest way to match a set of tags? Wouldn't it be nice if we could just include the literal tags? <xsl:match> <para></para> </xsl:match> This "query by example" makes easy cases easy. Yes, complex queries are more complex (though no more so than the original submission) but I think there's incredible value in starting from a simple foundation. And, it's nice to make the query syntax parallel to the generation syntax (or whatever the term). Scott XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
Re: New/old pattern syntax, why can, Paul Prescod | Thread | Re: New/old pattern syntax, why can, Paul Prescod |
tree addressing language (was Re: N, James Tauber | Date | how can I test current element type, Dave Carlson |
Month |