RE: XSL controversy

[Sean]
> > 1) The Irish Parliamentary Debate record is 3.5 GB of XML. We publish
> > this to HTML and Folio Views. Part of the publishing process is to
> > take each speakers name, pass it through a normalizer and look up
> > the speakers C.V. in a MySQL database. The C.V. details become part
> > of the generated HTML/FOLIO. The original XML is never changes
> > because it is quasi-legal material.
>
[Sebastian]
>this is a good example. you wouldn't do this today in XSL, but what
>about it could not be expressed in the syntax?

How would you express the normalization, connection to Oracle, index lookup,
error handling in XSL?

> > 2) The PricewaterhouseCoopers manual of accounting is approximately
> > 15,000 interlinked HTML pages. Part of the down-translation from
> > XML is to create a "faked" collapsible table of contents to appear
> > in a HTML frame. This, combined with some dense Javascript creates
> > the "illusion" of a collapsible/expandable table of contents using
> > IE 4/5.
>
>again, what is Python buying you over XSL? your work is being done in
>embedded Javascript, which is the same with whatever generator
>
I guess I should not have mentioned JavaScript as it has confused
matters. Most of the work is in the recursive algorithm for generating
interlinked HTML pages to fake the appearance of a collapsible table
of contents. My head hurts thinking about how this could be done in XSL.

> > 4) A pre-publishing QA suite performs "fake" transformations
> > on XML documents in batch mode. It examines the result for
> > anomalies and sends e-mail to the nominated person if anything
> > worrying turns up.
>
>I cannot quite visualize what these checks are, so I'll pass on that

Thinks like CALS table sanity checking. Checking that elements
with a #PCDATA content model actually contain text. Lots of application
specific checks such as (in the Parliamentary debate context) checking
to see that each debate has at least 1 speaker, no speaker name occurs
more than once per speech. That sort of thing. Oh, and of course,
sending the e-mails.

>
> > 5) 0.5 GB of accounting rules and regulations marked up in
> > XML contain extensive cross-references to Irish and English
> > legislation. As part of the publishing process, a
> > database of known anchors is assembled as a first pass.
> > In the second publishing pass, non-resolvable links are removed.
> > The result is that for a client in the UK, the links
> > to UK legislation work and the links to Irish legislation
> > have disappeared. For a client in Ireland, the situation
> > is reversed.
>
>not sure where this differs from 1) and 2) in terms of complexity
>
It doesnt, but how would you do it with XSL?

> > 6) An XML micro-document based publishing architecture
> > is based on a rack mounted network of pentium PCs
> > running Linux. Downtranslation of gigabytes of XML
> > from a shared network drive is distributed across all
> > processors based on configuration information stored
> > in a XML based publishing control system.[1]

>I'd say this irrelevant to the subject; its not an example of document 
>transformation is appropriate or inappropriate for XSL

It is a document transformation. Forget the beowulf bits. I have
an XML file that references thousands of other XML files. The
down-translation process converts each XML file to a HTML file and
interlinks them into a hierarchical structure expressed in the
top level XML file.

I stand by all my examples as things you would not want to do
in XSL. I am not saying they are not possible, I am saying
that there are tools better suited to them than straight XSL.
The key to getting the most out of XSL is knowing when
*not* to use it as well as knowing when to use it.


regards,


<Sean uri="http://www.digitome.com/sean.html">
Developers Day co-Chair WWW9, April 2000, Amsterdam
<uri>http://www.www9.org</uri>
</Sean>



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