Re: More XSL Discussion (archaic language parallels)

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:45 98/02/26 GMT, Sean Mc Grath wrote:
>I am going to have to show my age and draw an analogy with
>a rather old technology - RPG.
>
>RPG is an environment in which the traversal of the data set
>is implicit. Using RPG you do not need to hand craft the
>traversal mechanism-it is built in. 
>
>I think of XSL as having a similar built in traversal (in this
>case, of an XML document hierarchy). With that built in traversal
>you also get a very lovely and powerful syntax for specifying *context*.

Thank you, Sean!

There were some very bored grey cells of mine that got excited when I
started looking at DSSSL/XSL, and I now think they must have been the
RPG-II ones that have been quiescent for 2 decades.

In some ways you are correct ... the implicit traversal of the RPG-II
program (vs. document instance), triggering on flags (vs. construction
rules), is quite similar.

I've been wondering what nagging recollection of programming heritage was
being tickled by this work, and I think you've nailed it.

........... Ken


--
G. Ken Holman            mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crane Softwrights Ltd.  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com
Box 266,                             V: +1(613)489-0999
Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0         F: +1(613)489-0995
PGP Privacy: http://www.cyberus.ca/~holman/gkholman.pgp
Training:  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/schedule.htm


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list