Re: Formatting Objects considered harmful

[Paul Prescod <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Håkon Wium Lie wrote:
> 
> James Clark wrote:
> 
>  > With XSL you also always have the possibility of doing the right thing.
>  > Instead of sending the client a document that uses XSL FOs along with an
>  > XSL stylesheet that does the identity transform, you normally send the
>  > client a semantically meaningful XML document along with an XSL
>  > stylesheet that transforms that into XSL FOs.
> 
> I agree this is a much better model. However, in order for it to
> produce good aural renderings it requires that each document comes
> with an XTL sheet able to transform it into aural formatting objects.
> That's unrealistic.

I think that this is the central argument. It isn't about abuse: it's
about making it easy for people to do the right thing. As I understand it,
not being sight impaired, properly-designed HTML can be easily processed
by software designed for the sight impaired. That means that instead of
developing x different "applications" -- one for the sighted, one for the
blind, one for the color blind, etc., you develop one "application"
*carefully*.

In the XSL FO world, it seems that you need to specifically target each
disability because the FOs are not designed to degrade.

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

Company spokeswoman Lana Simon stressed that Interactive 
Yoda is not a Furby. Well, not exactly. 

"This is an interactive toy that utilizes Furby technology," 
Simon said. "It will react to its surroundings and will talk." 
  - http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/19222.html


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