XML + ???

[Brandon Ibach <bibach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Pardon my ignorance, as I'm sure this has been addressed before,
but with all the talk of CSS vs. XSL and such, I have to ask.
   CSS is very nice for doing style.  As long as all you have to do is
specify how the document should be rendered, it's fantastic.  It's
pretty powerful, yet easy to learn and understand, even for someone
who has never programmed anything.
   Of course, we also need a more powerful language capable of more
advanced document manipulation.  My question is this.  We already have
DSSSL.  It spent years in the standardization process.  It already
*is* a standard, and it's capable of just about any document
manipulation process.  So, why XSL?  Well, there are a couple of good
reasons.  We want something that is easier to implement than a
full-blown DSSSL system.  A project like that would be an enormous
undertaking.  We'd also like something that has a simpler syntax, so
that people with little or no programming experience can make use of
it.
   So, my question is this.  There are defined subsets of DSSSL,
including the "core" subsets which are defined right in the DSSSL
standard, as well as the subset defined by the DSSSL-O proposals (not
sure what the differences are between these...).  An implementation of
these subsets (in my somewhat uninformed opinion) probably wouldn't be
much more effort than a new implementation of something like XSL.
That takes care of issue number one.  As for the second issue, what's
stopping anyone from defining a simpler syntax, yet one compatible
with the general design and philosophy of DSSSL, that could easily be
translated on-the-fly to standard DSSSL, and sticking on as a frontend
to this basic DSSSL engine?
   I know the W3C is already quite committed to XSL, and I certainly
don't want to start a flame war here, but could somebody tell me what
establishing a whole new standard would have over an approach such as
this?
   TIA...

-Brandon :)


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