Re: A would-be user's first XSL experience (long)

Chuck Robey wrote:
> 
> There is something to be learned here.  Todd Fahrner, and *not* Paul
> Prescod, represents the type of person publishing tools *should* be made
> available to.  This means making them useable, not putting in their
> hands.  There is a strong tendency amongst knowledgeable programmers,
> when making tools, to ignore useablility, saying "it they are that
> stupid, they shouldn't be allowed near the computer".  I don't want to
> seem to be putting (possibly false) words in Paul's mouth, but you have
> to consider the tool's target audience.

Exactly. James Clark has made a technology preview for people
experimenting with XSL technology months before XSL becomes a standard. He
implements the language while he designs it to check that it is usable. He
releases his implementation so that people *willing to put in the effort*
can experiment with XSL while waiting for the browser-integrated
implementations.

Criticizing its usability completely misses the point of the tool.
Criticizing XSL's usability based on that tool strikes me as
non-productive.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"Silence," wrote Melville, "is the only Voice of God." The assertion,
like its subject, cuts both ways, negating and affirming, implying both
absence and presence, offering us a choice; it's a line that the Society
of American Atheists could put on its letterhead and the Society of
Friends could silently endorse while waiting to be moved by the spirit
to speak. - Listening for Silence by Mark Slouka, Apr. 1999, Harper's


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