Re: XSL Trans

Andrew Bunner wrote:
> 
> >In my opinion, the transformation language is going to be MUCH more
> >important than the formatting stuff anyhow.
> 
>   Definitely.
> 
>   I think James Clark's new version of XT is going to become one of the
> favorite utilities of smart web site managers. And it's because we're using
> it to transform XML to HTML, not because we care about a formatting
> language that no (main-stream) browser will be able to understand for the
> for seeable future.

While not disagreeing with the need for generalized transformations, I
find your analysis of projected market growth for XML rendering unduly
pessimistic.

I agree that doing good rendering is hard. However, products already
exist that have the appropriate algorithms to do the sort of
manipulations that are required when formatting text, flowing into
containers, embedding images, etc. They can easily take in a declarative
(CSS, XSL) description of styling plus a document instance and generate
a rendered result.

They are called word processors, and it has been observed that it is
much easier to add HTTP support to a wordprocessor than it is to add
rendering support to a network utility. It is also quite easy to remove
or restrict the editing finctionality in a wordprocessor or to make a
separete view-only version using the same rendering engine, which can be
free or inexpensive while not interfering with sales of the full editing
product.

Don't assume that the status quo is static. "Mainstream" in Web terms
changes at least every two years, often more frequently.

--
Chris


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