Subject: Re: Is DSSSL-O dead? From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <bradmcc@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 21:26:39 -0500 |
Frank Boumphrey wrote: > > In part XSL was proposed because of DSSSL's fearsome reputation for > difficulty, a reputation that in part has been fostered by the proponents of > DSSSL themselves. It seems that when 'disselites' speak only the elite > 'disselites' can understand.(I will make a disclaimer right now that there > are exceptions, for example Paul Prescods tutorial is a model of clarity). > > Having just finished teaching a course on style-sheets, I wonder if that > fearsome reputation is not a little over-rated. > > I identified the following four areas > that I thought the students would have difficulty with. > > 1. The concept of flow objects. > 2. The concept of pre-fix operands > 3. The lack of suitable tools for experimentation > 4. The lack of suitable documentation for teaching at an entry level. > (And even experienced programmers learning a new language benefit from entry > level materials) > > Much to my surprise > > 1. presented absolutely no difficulty at all provided the concept was > presented right up front. > > 2. presented much less difficulty than I thought, the students treated the > pre-fix operands as rather a game, competing with one another to create the > most outlandish and non-readable expression. > > 3. I wrote a very simple little teaching application that enabled the > students to play with the rules and output HTML. This more than anything > else conquers the "boredom" factor and turns an abstract discussion into a > concrete one. XSL may have taken off because a parser was provided right > from the beginning. > > 4. This remains a problem Paul Prescod and David Germain's tutorials are > excellent, but they are not aimed at the lite version, and Jade requires a > DTD to operate, and is non exactly user-friendly. A tool for XS should > operate without a DTD. > > DSSSL is an incredibly powerful language, in fact all the other > languages evince a "I want to be like Mike" attitude (for non US readers > this refers to a Nike Ad starring Michael Jordan), and I for one would hate > to see it relegated again to the marginalia of document authoring. > > It strikes me that all the perceived problems are eminently "fixable" > > Frank Boumphrey > > XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list In my 27 years in the computing world, I have yet to encounter any *concept* that couldn't have been made pretty obvious by being presented in well crafted examples (reinforced by reference to carefully "graded" abstractions...), rather than being promulgated in hocus-pocus artificial syntax ex nihilo. Emmanuel Kant's 3 "Critiques" provide the background for much of this, and, alas, there seem to be few computer scientsts who have mastered Kant, and Kant himself was not a practitioner of the pedagogical implications of his own profound insights.... Just some thoughts.... \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@xxxxxxxxxx (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- <!THINK [SGML]> Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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