Re: [xsl] browsers with XSL capabilities

Subject: Re: [xsl] browsers with XSL capabilities
From: Peter Flynn <peter@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 16:32:05 +0000
On Sat, 17 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> Most content editors or writers I know use MS Word.  

Largely because their employers or funders ask for it, not
realising there are any alternatives. It's a very forgiving
interface, and it makes documents look pretty fairly fast, which
is usually the only criterion that they are asked to apply. It
doesn't require much in the way of skills to operate, and you
don't need to know anything about documents or how they
behave, or anything about structure or usability, so you can use
people with a lower training level than with other systems. The
fact that the document is not reusable outside a Word environment
does not concern them, because Word and Windows will always be
available. Cost is not a factor because most companies have
plenty of spare cash for licenses, software upgrades, and
hefty hidden conversion fees when someone wants to do something
else with the text, like have it formatted and typeset
professionally in Quark or Frame.

The only people _not_ using Word are those who have a sneaking
feeling that it's not quite as robust as some other systems, or
those who can't afford it, or those who want to exert more
control over the way documents are put together and reused, or
those creating respositories that are being designed for very
long term accessibility.

In corporate content creation, you have a simple choice: you can
use money to invest in software to cover the deficiencies of your
writing/publishing ethos (perhaps even including some writers);
or you can use money to invest in people (training) to cover the
deficiencies of the software. While the former is cheaper than
the latter, people will continue to use wordprocessors instead
of structured text systems.

///Peter

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