was: using default params?

[David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>]

> By the way, is dssl a full fledged implementation of scheme
not all of scheme but does mandate tail recursion elimination
(I'd need to check the details, but then you could do that:-)

> If yes, it's a shame
> that xslt is so weak in comparison, and is becoming the standard while
> dssl doesn't play a role in the web/xml part of the game.
I know the folks in the OpenJade project watch this list, they could
comment better on that (and would no doubt disagree that dsssl doesn't
play a part).

I think actually in many ways XSLT is a cleaner language than dsssl
Xpath queries tend to work far simpler than the equivalent dsssl
and having the XML syntax, while making the more `programming' parts of
the stylesheet look horrible, does make the simpler `template'
stylesheets a lot simpler. And apart from the kind of people who inhabit
these lists, simple stylesheets that are basically a copy of the desired
output with a few xsl:value-of thrown in to fill out data are likely to
cover a large body of real cases. dsssl doesn't have that easy-start
mentality you get faced with scheme lisp, sgml architectural form
handling, and sosofos (specification-of-a-sequence-of-flow-objects)
from day one.

Its like arguing that sgml is more powerful than xml, well of course it
is, but xml is clearly more successful. How many full sgml parsers do
you know? Compared to how many XML systems? Its hard to really commit to
a language that is so complicated that the only widely deployed system is
implemented by the author of the spec. (James Clark's Jade) XSLT
on the other hand from the start had several implemenations that gives
more reassurance that the language is supportable long term.

David


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