Re: XSL with scripting

[Guy_Murphy@xxxxxxxxxx]

Hi.

If ECMAScript where included in the XSL spec there would be no need for you
to learn another language, you could simply ignore the scripting and stick
with the XSL. From what I can see the only thing being suggested by
proponents of scripting within XSL is that it be there as an escape hatch
for those who feel it necessary, not that it should replace or indeed even
address any of the functional goals of XSL. So this need not effect you.

The reason why proponent what something like ECMAScript *in* the spec
rather than just facilitated by the spec is that their stylesheets if using
script will still be portable.

And if your concern is the adultaration of a simple declaritive style
language, I would suggest that by the time XSL has been stretched to
encompass all the possible occurances that occur infrequently, that could
be left to a scripting language, your XSL sill loose all of it's original
simplicity and elegance.

I firmly believe that the best way to have maintian XSLs simplicity and to
encourage broad adoption by developers and users, is to keep XSL simple and
include ECMAScript. The big fear without scripting is that either a) XSL
will not be up to the job... or b) It will end up horiffically complex.

Cheers
     Guy.





xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 12/23/98 04:14:25 AM

To:   xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc:    (bcc: Guy Murphy/UK/MAID)
Subject:  Re: XSL with scripting




Flow Simulation wrote:
> Now we have seen the latest XSL draft, and scripting hasn't reappeared.
>
> Since there are obviously strong feelings about this, for and against,
> perhaps we should take a vote and send the result to the W3C as
> on the transformation/formatting issue.
>
> I think this one would be a simple yes/no.   Any takers?
The question more importantly would be how you would support scripting and
to what extent.  I am personally against adding scripting because learning
entire new programming (scripting languages) to use XSL I feel defeats its
use in the first place as a simple stylsheet language.  There are already
lots of existing complex solutions out there that have the power you may
need for your particular app so why not just use it instead of XSL.  For
XSL to be successful, it needs to be broadly adopted.  Adding in complex
hooks that everyone must support is not the way to go.  If you want to
layer your own scripting solution on top of XSL or else build your own
proprietary version of XSL to do your own server-processing needs, then I
see nothing wrong with that.
Tyler

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