Re: Nostradamus (was Re: FO. lists as tables)

[pandeng@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Schafer)]

On Thu, 14 Oct 1999 12:20:12 -0400, you wrote:

>I think the XSL WG *is* tuned to the needs of typesetters.

I'm not so sure. From the XSL Requirements Summary (thanks to Tony
Graham for reminding us of its existence; it's been a long time since
I looked at it):

--------8<--------
Predictability

Page fidelity is neither a requirement nor a goal. Presented with the
same document and the same stylesheet, a given renderer should always
produce the same results. Different renderers should produce similar
results.
--------8<--------

To me, it looks like HTML all over again. HTML is non-portable,
because every browser renders it differently. The end result is that
people spend inordinate amounts of time hand-tweaking their HTML so
that it looks more or less the same in each browser.

That different XSL formatters will produce only "similar" results may
be acceptable for online display, at least in some situations, but it
certainly won't cut it for paper. How many times have you been
infuriated by a word processor or DTP system that steadfastly refuses
to format the output the way you want, no matter what you try? A bevy
of "XSL-compatible" formatters that sorta kinda produce the same
output is only going to make matters worse.

-Steve Schafer


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