Re: About the style processing instruction

[Chris Maden <crism@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[Didier PH Martin]
> <YourComment>
> Didier proposed that stylesheet-association processing instructions
> should include media rules.
> </YourComment>
> 
> <Reply>
> I agree, this adds more versatility but we should also have the
> possibility to set multiple separate stylesheet for multiple
> media. My own position is that we should have both.
> </Reply>

Multiple ways to do a single task engenders confusion.  If stylesheet
inclusion can be placed inside media-dependent sections within a
stylesheet language, then adding another mechanism is distracting.

> <YourComment>
> I suggested that this is better left to a stylesheet, as not all
> properties depend on the medium.  I adduced CSS's @media rule as an
> example.
> </YourComment>
> 
> <Reply>
> OK for @media as an example so we then need a way for XSL to specify
> other media and some persons in this list made suggestions, we will
> just be more prepared and be better critics of the next specs. We
> won't be just recipient of W3 specs :-) but thinking organisms.
> </Reply>

Read the XSL spec.  There is an open issue there, in §2.2:

     Issue (media-rule): Should we provide the functionality of CSS's
     @media rule and if so how?

Addressing your comments to this issue will likely result in better
response from the WG than will ad-hoc proposals for alternate methods
and random flamage about W3C ivory tower conspiracies.  Members of the
XSL WG *do* read this list, and comments here are taken into serious
consideration during discussions.  More rational comments are taken
more seriously.

> Yes I agree, and this is why we have this thread, to think about
> this issue in the light of XSL stylesheet format. Thinking about
> this issue is not solely reserved to W3 members but also to people
> who will use this spec, doesn't it?

No.  But if I tell you my car will have wheels, but I haven't figured
out what shape, tell me, "Make them round," not, "We can put rollers
on all the roads so the car will slide right along!"

> You are talking like if DSSSL is a living dead without any
> future. Are you implicitely suggesting that DSSSL won't have any
> future specs improved.  Specs more in tune with the CSS and XSL
> world? Maybe you have good reason to think so, so please expose
> them. We'll learn.

DSSSL is a published Standard, not a draft.  It is scheduled (I
believe) for a five-year revision to be published in 2001.  In Web
time, it's effectively static.  (The lessons of XSL and CSS will
probably be rolled into the revision, but that's not at all
guaranteed.)

-Chris
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