XSL-FO Does it have the guts?

[Kurt Donath <kurt.donath@xxxxxxxx>]

In Leventhal's critic of XSL on xml.com, one of his first arguments
against XSL is that it provides flow objects that don't make sense on
the web, such as page flow objects.  Then he says that the number of
people who will be publishing to more than one media (paper and web)
will be small in number, and they can easily pick up existing standards:
CSS, and DSSSL to do that kind of publishing.  He later goes onto state:
"I am qualified to give an expert opinion in this area and my opinion is
that DSSSL and XSL are hard!"  Since I am not an expert in
formatting/transformation languages, I'm trying to validate this claim.

I buy into the *concept* that XSL will be able to publish to more than
one media with the same source and formatting language, and I think
Leventhal misses the point that XML is all about looking beyond the
web.  Does the set of flow objects currently in the XSL spec have enough
power for publishing?  On the continuum from 'easy' to 'hard' publishing
jobs, what will XSL be able to address?

-- 

Kurt Donath
315.456.6276
Staff Systems Engineer
Intranet: http://www.syr.lmco.com/~donath/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                       Lockheed Martin - Enterprise Information Systems
                                          Systems Engineering / Webserv


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