Re: syntax feedback

[Chris Lilley <chris@xxxxxx>]

Guy_Murphy@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> First off, it's been made quite clear that XML/XSL are not meant to replace
> HTML/CSS but to coexist, and largely be available for larger scale Web
> applications. 

Agree about the coexistance, but unhappy with your pairings.

> So for people doing their own Web site on Geocities, in all
> likelyhood they'll stick with HTML/CSS, which in many respects is easier
> than XML/CSS. 

Actually I find XML/CSS to be easier than HTML:/CSS because there are no
stupid undocumented bugwards-compatible hardcoded rendering tricks to
hack your way around. In other words, applying a CSS stylesheet to XML
does what you expect it to. No more "why is there 40 pixels of left
margin around that element no matter what my stylesheet does? Aha, its a
blockquote".


> The whole idea of XML is to break the data away from style considerations
> once and for all. CSS as it stands can't reorder, which means that you
> have to mark-up your XML in the order you want it displayed... oops another
> broken model.

Or that you have to do your transformation in a separate step from your
presentation, one more simple and elegant model ;-)

> And who's bright
> ideas was pseudo-classes? Talk about a hack. Did the WG run out of Jolt
> Cola or something? 

A psuedo-class is a model for representing something that cannot be
expressed in markup (like, this link is currently being traversed) so
that it can be styled. Most people understand both what it is and how to
use it in around one minute.

--
Chris


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