Re: `High-level' format specifications with XSL?

[Paul Prescod <papresco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Grosso wrote:
> 
> XML is the high-level markup--which is far from "just like LaTeX," but
> this is a better parallel in your case than XSL.  XSL is more like a LaTeX
> .sty file where you get to say just what things look like.  And if you've
> written a few LaTeX .sty files, you know you have to "think about it."

But Kai doesn't want to write the equivalent of a .sty file. He wants to
style his XML document in terms of LaTeX-like objects, instead of TeX-like
objects. Note that the choice of abstraction chosen in XSL and DSSSL is in
a certain sense arbitrary: it was a mixture of:

 * what the editors thought could be portably implemented
 * what they thought would be easy to use
 * what they thought would be efficient
 etc.

Kai is saying that for his needs, the choices made are not appropriate. I
believe that this will be a common complaint, and I believe that it should
be corrected by allowing flow objects to be built out of flow objects, as
LaTeX macros are built out of other LaTeX macros.
 
> In other words, the whole point of a stylesheet is to be able to specify
> what "good-looking output" should look like in your opinion.  You (or
> whoever writes a stylesheet) *has* to think about it.  If you don't want
> to think about it yourself, you don't want to write a stylesheet.

That is not true. Writing a stylesheet is a necessary precondition of
getting a reasonable printed rendition out of an XML document. That's all
he wants. He doesn't want to become a style designer. He just wants to
print his document out!
 
 Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Three things trust above all else: Your knowledge of your craft
That someone turns a profit, and that you will get the shaft
http://www.geezjan.org/humor/computers/threes.html


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