Re: XSL FO conformance

Eduardo Gutentag writes:

 > I am a bit puzzled by your words. You started this thread by asking
 > (http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/archive/msg10922.html)
 > 
 > ---
 > why is <table-footer> extended, but
 > <table-header> basic? why would anyone be able to implement one but
 > not the other?

....

 > But if you read the conformance section of the working draft
 > (http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/slice8.html#section-N54274-Conformance)
 > you will see that "basic" is intended for applications that need to
 > support a minimum level of pagination while "extended" is intended 
 > for applications "whose goal is to provide sophisticated pagination."
 > It's just a matter of what is or might be your application's goal
 > and or capabilities.

Sure, I understand that. I think that what worried me was the apparent 
division into "basic" and "extended" being based on the capabilities
of existing software. I would have expected more objectivity.

 > I am not sure why you would consider that the various levels of conformance 
 > cripple the system, or target a specific set of software. 

because the distinction between basic and extended seems blurred. on
the one hand, it is a matter of whether or not one needs decent
pagination; but on the other hand, it seems that table footers and
headers are split apart on the basis of what current software does

 > The differenciation
 > between table-header and table-footer that you point out is based on
 > the acknowledgment that existing implementations (albeit not of XSL ;-) *do*
 > make a differenciation between one and the other, and therefore future
 > implementations might also want to make this distinction.

I can see the argument, but I find it hard to agree with. What does a
theoretical system like XSL have to with current practice? If you
*are* being influenced by existing capabilities, I'd like to see
considerably more information on the details and the arguments.

 > While it is not beyond the realm of the possible that the XSL WG has made
 > mistakes, I think this is not one of them.

Possibly I mistook the way XSL FO is going. I saw it as a rewrite of
DSSSL, with varioius constraints:

 a) expressing everthing in XML
 b) making sure that all the work done on CSS was explicitly
    referenced and mappped to the relevent part of the new language

I assumed that, like DSSSL, XSL FO was designed with no constraints
about what was currently possible or implemented. 

I'm summary, I would argue that the current spec seems to confuse
a theoretical "simple vs sophisticated pagination" distinction with a
"needed for conformance with current standards vs
theoretically achievable distinction.

Sebastian


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