RE: alternatives to XSL (was RE: Microsoft extensions)

Hi James,

Thanks for the explanation. I learned more about Omnimark.

With Omnimark Can you do processing on the tree? I mean here:

a) enumerate an element's collection
b) process and replace an element in the tree and all its children with a
new one (and therefore get a new element sub structure)
c) Do procedural processing on the tree (I mean here: not with a pattern
match mechanism but from a DOM point of view or something similar. Briefly,
does it support the "composite" pattern (Gamma & al.), a kind of DOM ?

Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of James Robertson
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 1998 2:17 AM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: alternatives to XSL (was RE: Microsoft extensions)
>
>
> At 15:31 12/11/1998 , you wrote:
>   | Didier PH Martin wrote:
>   | >
>   | > Hi Paul
>   | >
>   | > you said:
>   | > I don't think of Omnimark as high-level. I think of it as ultra
> low-level.
>   | > It is focused on the nuts and bolts of the text.
>   | >
>   | > Can you briefly describe what you mean by "low level and
> focused on the
>   | > text". Is it lower level than XSL and if yes why. We can
> learn from your
>   | > explanations.
>   |
>   | Omnimark is about string processing. It is very good at
> matching strings
>   | that are SGML tags and so forth, but the basic model is the same as
>   | working through an RTF string or a comma delimited file string. When I
>   | work with XML, I want to think of it as just a serialization
> for a *tree*.
>   | It's the tree that I want to work with in my code. Omnimark
> is low-level
>   | in that it works with the string and not the abstraction it
> represents.
>
> This is not actually true.
>
> Yes, Omnimark has a lot of "regular-expression"-type string handling.
>
> It's big strength is that it _also_ has an integrated, but separate,
> DTD-based system.
>
> In the string handling side of things you say:
>
> 	FIND <pattern>
> 		WHEN <something> IS TRUE
>
> 		<do something>
>
> However, in the SGML/XML side, you say:
>
> 	ELEMENT Foo
>
> 		OUTPUT Bar
>
> 	ELEMENT Para
> 		WHEN PARENT IS Something
>
> 		<do something>
>
> So, yes, Omnimark does allow you to consider an XML document
> as a tree. And the advantage of something like Omnimark (versus
> XSL) is that it's a full programming language. This makes it
> a lot more expressive and powerful.
>
> As ever, I am speaking for myself, not as a spokesperson
> for Omnimark Technologies.
>
> Cheers,
>
> J
>
> -------------------------
> James Robertson
> Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
> SGML, XML & HTML Consultancy
> http://www.steptwo.com.au/
> jamesr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Beyond the Idea"
>  ACN 081 019 623
>
>
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