Re: [xsl] xsl 2.0?

Subject: Re: [xsl] xsl 2.0?
From: Liam R E Quin <liam@xxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 16:18:12 -0400
On Sun, 2013-11-03 at 00:41 +0900, Toshihiko Makita wrote:
> Dear Liam Quin,
> 
> Thank you for your reply.
> 
> Your comment referred to the company Antenna House. Your description may
> be true.
> For your understanding I am only a application developer and I am not
> concerned to actual development of Antenna House Formatter.

OK. I also mentioned RenderX and PrinceXML.
> [...] I know that several publishers like O'Reilly has moved from XSL-FO
> to CSS.

not only niche publishers like O/Reilly, but also major publishers such
as Hachette.


>  However I have basic question. What
> is the *MOST* fundamental benefit of CSS technology comparing XSL-FO in
> paged media?

It is not really technical but social - CSS is more widely used, and it
is easier to find designers who can work in terms of CSS.

> If an paper media and eBook media coexists for the moment, is CSS most
> suitable for this situation?
> 
> I have been engaged developing stylesheets that converts various XML
> documents into XSL-FO. I know that there are many challenges left in
> automatic document formatting world. So I think it is not a good news
> for the XSL-FO users that W3C stop developing XSL2.0.

I wish that we had been able to continue, but the decision was made not
by W3C but by the people who stopped coming to the Working Group
meetings and by the people who did not get involved. We reached out to a
lot of organizations and people.

The truth is that it does not make much sense to develop XSL-FO further
when there is not much demand for the new features, and when we cannot
match the resources going into CSS today.

I hope that CSS catches up with XSL-FO over the next two or three years.

If enough people get involved in that work, maybe it will happen; and
people _are_ getting involved when they were not involved in XSL-FO
work.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml

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