[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Which browser supports FO also
Hi Steve, Steve said: Didier, you and Jon Bosak should have a talk! He gave a speech at XTech last year that pleaded for us to not give up on FOs. FOs do not replace HTML. Rather, HTML just becomes one possible output back-end from an FO processor. Granted, you would lose some fine control of the HTML production, but for many applications that loss would be fine when weighed against the benefit of maintaining a single abstract formatting specification. Didier replies: Speaking of giving up, I am probably a good example of a guy not giving up since I am working hard on a DSSSL-2 specification :-)) So, I never got in my mind to say to the people to give up. My comment was more a status of the current situation. A status with a sentence beginning with " here is the current state of...." instead of a more inspiring one like "I have a dream....". This is why I used probabilities in my statements. This said, let me, for a moment, bring some experience I gained from the hundreds of hours invested on thinking about the issues of styling. The actual DSSSL and also XSLFo suffer from the same limitations. a) Their visual model is based on a page model. Notice here that I mentioned the word "visual". b) both XSLFo and DSSSL-1 lack the "aural" dimension. This is particularly important if you consider that VoiceXML could potentially become a commonly used type of browsing tool is car become equipped with VoiceXML enabled equipment. Consider that GM is currently working on that (more precisely OnStar). That other car manufacturers are seriously considering wireless connection and "aural" document rendition. Expect that the 21st century car is a network connected car. In the light of this important innovation, the current XSLFo and DSSSL-1 "visual" models are not of great use for "aural" rendering. So, some glucose should be used to feed some mental activities on this issue :-)) However, DSSSL-1 brought an important feature, the concept of "rendering driver". In this type of architecture, a single object model is presented to the designer and "drivers" perform the translation from the model into other models. For example, a "paragraph" can be translated into a <div> or a <p> object in the case of HTML and into "/p" for an other and so forth. Also, a rendering object can be mapped to a procedure, an API etc... In this sense, it can be tremendously useful to have a single model to work with and to have "drivers" to perform the translation. This brings to reality the vision of "I have a dream...of a universal object model....". The problem that may occur when we try to realize this dream is that the superset model become: a) too complex b) too restrictive In a) the feature set tries to embrace the most complete language. One of "drivers" is becoming the reference language and the question is then "why not take this language as a reference?". In b) the feature set is more limited than one or several language encapsulated by the "drivers". In that case, the "universal" language is less useful that one of the "driver encapsulated" language. So do try to implement the least common denominator or to imitate the most complete language. The result should be something more balanced. This is a difficult design constraint. An other point, witch, in our case, is to be considered also is a question of knowledge management. To make the story short, a knowledge management perspective takes into account what people know and thus how this knowledge is translated into action, how this knowledge is economical (is there something they should know that will decrease the costs). The goal we try to reach with a "universal" rendering language is to reduce development costs by having a single piece of code to write. OK I'll repeat it because this is the main reason: The goal we try to reach with a "universal" rendering language is to reduce development costs by having a single piece of code to write Actually, millions of people know about the HTML language, from them, to graduate from HTML 201 to XHTML 101 is not a big deal since most of their knowledge is still useful. So, from the knowledge management point of view. We have greater chance of success to have these people to enter in the XML world through the XHTML. For those who already made the shift to the independence of the model and the view, this is an other ball game. They simply live in a different world, they made the move to the other side of Alice's mirror. But what is important here to notice is the "herd" effect as most of us have experimented throughout our life. The most recent great example if probably the stock exchange and the insane prices paid for e-stocks. Why is this popular? more people get it because everybody want it, and everybody want it because every body get it :-) When you have millions of people knowing a language, even if this latter is limited, the main argument of these people can be: "can you improve it a little so that it does what we want". The least thing these people wants to hear is: "forget it, and start to learn something new". IN the case of the latter, people need to face a wall or have good economical incentives to do a move. Can XMLFo can make these people to switch? Now again, let's take a perspective from the experience we gained from the last 4 years with DSSSL. No I promise, I won't do like my grandfather and talk about the trenches and Verdun :-)) We discovered that the main problem DSSSL got is simply not to be embedded into the other products, like for instance, the SGML/XML authoring tools, the HTML/XHTML browsers. So to speak, the incentive to learn and use is mostly driven by the browser and authoring tools manufacturers. Or actually, it is also in the hand of people with a lot of free time and who are willing to design/code for no fees. If the "gizmo" language is included in all browsers and all authoring tools, then this "gizmo" language is interesting for the people. This is the network effect - everybody has it, therefore I like it, I like it because every body has it. So, independently that either DSSSL or XSLFO is good or bad, the advice we can give to people who want to make it a success is: a) embed the language in an open source browsing tool - for instance in Mozilla - Any volunteers? b) embed the language in an authoring tool - For instance, a volunteer based open source project - any volunteers? c) embed the language in a vendor browsing tool - for instance Windows Explorer - Microsoft will you do that? does your market wants that? is there any incentive for you to do that? d) embed the language in a vendor authoring tool - For instance in arbortext, Hot metal - Hey guys will you do that? are your customers asking for it? are you ready to take the risk? (the last word is important here - risk taking for commercial ventures). If (a) to (d) is fulfilled or if any item (from (a) to (d) ) reach big numbers (of people), then this is it, no question asked if XSLFo is good or bad, a great software or a so so tool. It is a de facto success because of the herd effect. Because of the network phenomenon. Implied herd effect Reasoning "if all these guys are investing in it - it should be good...". Theorem: the value of a software is proportional to its number of used copies. The more you have, the most valuable it is. its value is proportional to the square of its number of used copies. The function here is an exponential. Or something more like a Gauss curve (a bell curve). When a new kid on the block appears, and become more popular, this is the opposite, the value is decreasing with the same proportion but in a negative manner. Question: Where is HTML located? Still in the ascending curve but challenged by the new kid XHTML. As soon as browser manufacturers include new modules (like for instance the SMIL time module), the value of HTML decrease and the value of XHTML increase. Mostly also due to the fact, that XHTML is simply the same king with new clothes. Where is located XSLT and XSLFO?: still with the early adapters and visionaries. It didn't crossed the chasm yet but may as soon as both Mozilla and Microsoft browser support it. These two guys are the market gateway, like it or not. Is XSLFO popular? Observing the industry, I didn't saw this kind of support yet. I should say that there is some exception like RenderX, a company taking the "risk". Does XSLFo does the job? sure it does. And I hope people will use FOP or RenderX or OpenJade as tools to get their job done. Will these tool find a market? sure, they already have. There is a niche market of people not affected by the herd effect and ready to learn something different - marketers call them : early adopters or risk takers. But to get to the mass market, the big numbers, we need to cross the chasm and to cross the chasm, we need at least (a) and preferably (c). Otherwise, XSLFo will fulfill the needs of a niche market and would never jump over the chasm. Advice: If you see that XSLFo fulfill your needs, go for it and do not wait for the herd. If you want the silver bullet, a kind of thing like "code once, style everywhere", sorry, we do not have that yet. Should we give up and stop searching for this silver bullet? No. As long as some people still search for it, the progress is not over. Conclusion: What is needed though is a fast XSLFo to HTML translation tool in addition to XSLFo to PDF that we have today. Someone ready to take the torch? Also ready to give it to make it work and give it Mozilla? If yes, That's it, XSLFo is a success story. Sorry instead of starting my message with "I have a dream...." I just said "Here is a job to be done...". The time now is for execution, not discourse. The result of the action will make this language popular or not. So, like they say in the army, it will be hard, you may die but you'll get the glory.... Volunteers? If so, drop me an email, the OPenJade project has already most of the drivers, what we need now is the XSLT part and FO to driver translation. If action for you is more important than politics here is my email : martind@n.... cheers Didier PH Martin ---------------------------------------------- Email: martind@n... Conferences: XML Europe (http://www.gca.org) Book: XML Professional (http://www.wrox.com) column: Style Matters (http://www.xml.com) Products: http://www.netfolder.com *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ ***************************************************************************
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