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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: SGML on the Web
 On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 02:03:24PM -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 01:08:57PM -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote: > > > XML directly on the Web seems to have fallen victim to the notion > > > that XML needed a transformative style approach, missing the easy > > > opportunity that CSS provided for document display and requiring > > > people to use XSLT. That notion has also provided Microsoft with > > > plenty of cover for their (non-)approach to XML in the browser, > > > which may have successfully kept XML off the ordinary Web. > > > > Yes, but as you say, XML needs a transformative approach > > Huh? I didn't endorse that approach by any means. Such an approach may > be useful, but I'd call "needed" an overstatement, and it certainly came > with costs as well as benefits. Hrm. I seem to have misstated your position. Sorry 'bout that. ;-) > > -- a way of turning an XML format into a Java Class (e.g. WSDL -> > > SOAP proxy). > > That may be what you need. I think that path has been disastrous for > XML generally, however. The big problem with XML is that it is intended to be universal. This has led to irreconsilable dualities in the past: document vs. data for example. You seem to be describing another duality: annotation vs. transformation. Where I sit, the ability to both annotate and transform XML data has been a key part of XML's success -- even on the web. I don't see how the desire to transform (even overemphasizing the need to transform) has been detrimental. While XSLT may have distracted people away from XML+CSS, I don't see that distraction a root cause for anything disastrous... > > You can't do that if your only concern is document display, or your > > only tool is CSS. Remember that XML was meant to live outside of the > > web, too. > > My point is that such notions have kept XML from ever making its way on > to the Web. That's a pretty bold statement. It also discounts a lot of other factors: lack of widespread vendor support for rendering XML (either via CSS or XSL); inconsistent presentation of XML documents when supported; and the widspread entrenchment of HTML-based presentation, both in terms of installed browsers and developer skills. Had XSLT never been started, I don't think the web community would have adopted XML+CSS to a significantly greater degree. After all, it took years to get CSS implemented properly in some browsers; ISTR that IE4/Mac was the first to pass the CSS torture test, and that was mid-2000. Therefore, it was *possible* to do XML+CSS way before XSLT became viable (on the browser or on the server), yet it wasn't widely used, mostly because it was poorly supported by a small number of 4th generation browsers. > I disagree. FO has proven in the end to be primarily aimed at print, > but that was far from clear initially. I don't think so. Norm's rebuttal to the XSL Considered Harmful describes CSS and XSL as complimentary technologies, not competing technologies: http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/1999/06/xsl_edit.html At the time, there was some discussion of interactive XSL documents being in-scope. The majority of Norm's comments deal with the need for a transformation language for a variety of uses. I won't go so far as to say that Norm's expectations for XML formatting are universal, but he makes a good case that the need for transformation in one form or another is widespread. > I'm not contesting the success of XSLT, only that its contribution to > the success of XML on the Web is questionable at best. While it has > certainly made some contribution, it's also put off a lot of the people > I thought most likely to take advantage of XML in Web development. Yes, XSLT doesn't contribute significantly to the success (or lack thereof) of XML on the web. But I don't see how that's relevant - XSLT isn't supposed to drive or impede XML adoption on the web, just simplfy transformational processing of XML. If the existance of XSLT is holding people back from XML in Web development, that's a marketing problem, not a technology problem. Z. 
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