Re: Nostradamus (was Re: FO. lists as tables)

James Robertson writes:

> XSLT is just too wierd for most programmers

Ironic, isn't it. The whole XSL thing started because people said
DSSSL's Lisp was "just too wierd for most programmers". No pleasing
some folk.

I'm not comparing XSLT to anything. XSLT is not good because
it's simpler than DSSSL.

It will be proven better if the "average HTML coder" can understand
it, and make use of it.

And no, there is not a single person on this list who is representative
of the "average folk", simply because we are all savvy and interested
enough to be on this list.

> People like CSS.

I have never met anyone who liked CSS. This (fairly meaningless)
statement has at least the virtue of being true (subject to memory
limitations), where "People like CSS" is a pure guess.

While I obviously don't have any actual statistics, I
think it's safe to assume that an awful lot of people
use CSS, while very few use XSLT, let along XSL:FO.

Yes, I am aware that CSS has been around for a while,
and that XSLT and XSL:FO are very new.

However, I would argue that CSS wouldn't have become
popular if it didn't do at least most of what people
wanted.

-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
SGML, XML & HTML Consultancy
http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Beyond the Idea"
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