Re: First working draft of XSL

["Richard Lander" <relander@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The new syntax is definitely more concise, but I would argue that it is
harder to read, as it employs a more abstract syntax. I would argue that
this syntax breaks second and third last XSL design principles.

I side with XML on this one, as opposed to designing a new syntax. We might
as well stay with DSSSL, if we are not going to standardize on a wholly-XML
syntax.

Richard.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Schach <davidsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: 'xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 1998 2:02 PM
Subject: RE: First working draft of XSL


>The original XSL submission used XML for the patterns.  However, the new
XSL
>pattern syntax is much more concise and easier to read than an XML based
>pattern syntax.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark_Overton@xxxxxxxxx [SMTP:Mark_Overton@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 1998 10:30 AM
>> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: First working draft of XSL
>>
>> My first thought is this:
>> Why did they not use XML for the structure of the patterns, etc.
>>
>> For example,
>> Here is a rule example from the new spec
>> <xsl:template match="book[excerpt]/author[attribute(degree)]">
>> ...
>> </xsl:template>
>>
>> This could have been something like:
>> <xsl:template>
>>      <match>
>>           <element type="book">
>>                <element type="excerpt"/>
>>                <target type="author>
>>                     <attribute name="degree"/>
>>                </target>
>>           </type>
>>      </match>
>> <action>
>>   ...
>> </action>
>> </xsl:template>
>>
>> This way the xsl processor could read the stylesheet without having to
>> parse all of this new syntax.  We have a great tool in XML for
>> representing
>> structured data so why did we have to come up with another?  Now, to read
>> an XSL stylesheet I need to parse all of these new delimiters and more
>> ('/'
>> | '//' | '(' | ')' | '|' | '[' | ']' | ',' | '=' | '.' | '..' | '*' | '{'
>> |
>> '(' |, etc.......).  All of the built in functionality of my XML parser
is
>> of no use.  What a shame.
>>
>> -Mark Overton
>>
>>
>>
>>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>
>
> XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>


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