Re: syntax feedback

Subject: Re: syntax feedback
From: Paul Prescod <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 16:19:37 -0600
Daniel GLAZMAN wrote:
> 
>         Yeah... So why does XSL reinvent the wheel and not reuse CSS
> selectors' syntax ?

The biggest difference between the syntaxes seems to be that XSL uses "/"
instead of ">", because it uses a path metaphor. That allows things like
".." and "../..". That seems like a reasonable change.

>  Why those ugly xsl:then and BLA $eq$ "sdfv" ?

I don't know what you are talking about. There is no "xsl:then" and the
latest XSL specification has no occurence of the $ symbol inside of it.

> Why position qualifiers using negative integers in order to say 'last
> one' ? Berk !!!!

That's not in the latest public spec. either. You might want to wait to
criticize new versions until they are released. Anyhow, the negative
indexing syntax is an old tradition, much older than CSS. It is used in
HyTime and XPointer. What is CSS's syntax for asking about the
third-from-last item?

>         CSS is not this small little thing for dummies which stands in
> a corner of the W3C web site. It is clearer, simpler than XSL is 

It's easy to be simpler when the problem you are supposed to solve is
simpler.

> (as a member of W3C, I have access to XSL WG docs) and will be. 

I don't think you are supposed to pre-announce the group's direction.

> It is
> extremely powerful and the selector's syntax is the first thing which
> is really new in the markup language world we have been exploring
> during 15 years (I am of course forgetting HyTime).

I really don't see anything very innovative about the selector syntax.
What is so much better about the CSS selector syntax over the XML syntax.
It's clear that the various query and selector syntaxes should be unified,
but I don't see anything particularly significant about the CSS syntax to
recommend it over XPointer, XQL and XSL syntax.

>         Oh, BTW, I've shown examples of XSL to newbies and SGML users
> too. The result ? They hated it. Quotation : " looks like an hybrid of
> Perl, csh and SGML invented by a Microsoft employee " :-)))

Funny, I've shown it (the public draft, of course) to many people and got
nothing but good response. Clearly it all depends on how you present it.

Nevertheless, I can say this about XSL: I've deployed it in two
situations. The first was a markup user who doesn't know how to program.
The second was at a Very Large web content company. They plan to roll it
out and deliver hundreds of thousands of XSL-mediated hits through a
custom-coded XSL engine every day.

So that's a data point from the low end and the very high end. XSL is
destined to be a runaway hit.

 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"Sports utility vehicles are gated communities on wheels" - Anon


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