Re: XS: Guidelines for the discussion

[lex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alex Milowski)]

> 2. Bearing in mind that the point of dsssl-o (and hence XS) is to give
> implementors something reasonable to aim for, I am going to be guided
> by the principle that nothing in DSSSL that is not in Jade is going to
> be required by the specification.  If James can't implement it,
> there's no point in talking about it.

I think this should be rephrased as "all DSSSL implementors".  Although
James has been doing very good work with Jade, his priorities for what goes
into Jade should not affect what goes into XS. 

James, Norbert, myself and others, as DSSSL implementors, should be able to
tell this group that the features being asked for are reasonable and
appropriate regardless of how fast they can or *want* to be implement such
features.

Remember, there is more than James out here working on DSSSL.

We should also think about a XT spec.  DSSSL transformations for XML!

> 3. An important implication of this rule is that we can accomplish
> some good early work by looking at the things currently supported by
> Jade that are not required by the spec and asking of each one whether
> it should be.  I would like to suggest this as a place to start.

I don't agree.

I think we should look at the standard and work from there.  There is nothing
like an implementation to sway the design of a standard.  I wouldn't suggest
that we use my DSSSL engine for the basis of the standard either.

We should not have to say: "Well, this feature is in the standard because
it was in implementation X of DSSSL."  We should have a sound reason for
adding features.

We should start by looking at the formatting *features* we want to support
and then look at the best way to support them within the DSSSL standard and
outside of the DSSSL standard (i.e. application flow objects).

We should build a list of requirements for XS including what kinds of
formatting we need in a browser/etc.  I certainly have a list (potentially
a long list).

> 4. To maintain my sanity (what's left of it), I am going to continue
> to read the DSSSList as a Daily Digest subscriber.  This means that I
> do not intend to take a very active role in the discussion.  In fact,
> I may let several days go by at a time before catching up with it.
> But I will read everything said on this subject and I will produce
> revised versions of the draft based on what occurs on the list.

Being on this list and the XML list, I'm really beginning to *hate* mailing
lists.  If I am away for a few days it is *impossible* to catch up!

...I realize e-mail is the lowest common denominator... but a web-based
threaded discussion group would be *much* better... for me at least.  ;-)

==============================================================================
R. Alexander Milowski     http://www.copsol.com/   alex@xxxxxxxxxx
Copernican Solutions Incorporated                  (612) 379 - 3608

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