Re: CSS for transformation

[Tyler Baker <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Philippe Le Hégaret" wrote:

> Paul Prescod wrote:
> > I don't know that there is any real benefit in trading conspiracy
> > theories. After an initial scan, the XSL formatting model looks much more
> > complete than the CSS model. That doesn't mean that the CSS model is
> > wrong, or stupid or was a waste of time to create. It is simply not
> > sufficient. That's the nature of progress. Usually it isn't contentious to
> > say that older technologies need to be updated to solve new problems.
>
>   I don't think the XSL formatting model looks much more
> complete than the CSS model. If you look at the CSS specification
> and compare it to the XSL specification, you'll find differences
> but these differences can be removed in CSS3. It's not a really big
> problem. And if people wants an X, it's very easy to create the XCSS.
>   XSL wants to poorly transform XML documents into another
> XML document and it works (not well, but it works).
>   They define a new matching way, different than the CSS way.
>   XSL can't transform an XML document into an unknown format. I know, you
> could add a namespace and do a post-processor, but is it the good solution ?
> And, if it's not the goal of XSL, should we work on an another solution ?
>   XSL can't process an XML document very well because it's not
> a powerful language. They add xsl:if or xsl:for-each but who wants
> to write a program with the XML syntax ? They said, we'll add a script solution
> after because users can do stupid things with this, but for the moment,
> they don't propose an another solution for this. So we have to write programs
> to do the job.
>
>   So, I'm looking for an another solution, different than XSL. Any idea ?

Well there is speculation and there is fact.  The current XSL draft is working
quite well (at least for HTML output) for the needs of a highly-dynamic website I
am indirectly involved with.  I don't think XSL is supposed to be the end-all
solution for everything, but something simple enough that you don't need a
complicated programming background just to create a highly-dynamic website.

XSL as not a programming language.  It is not a scripting language either.  I feel
XSL's power will be in its simplicity and its ability to change the entire look and
feel of a website without changing the content or rewriting about 1000 lines of
JavaScript each time.  Writing code to present content is just not a very efficient
way of delivering dynamic content from a cost perspective.  No company in there
right mind wants to hire 10 JavaScript experts just to get a website going.

XSL I believe will succeed because it will eliminate the need for a lot of the
scripting solutions as well as the really high-end web-site server products people
use today to get the job done.  In the end, this saves businesses money and that is
why it will succeed.

Tyler


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