Re: Abbreviated form of XSLT?

> You can say the same for the Relax NG compact syntax (or for WikiML),
> but in all the cases, if the compact and XML syntaxes are equivalent,
> the argument is rather pointless since your always only a simple
> translation away from the other!

for the first point, that it's more natural to embed XML fragments into
XML than into more conventional languages holds anyway. The second point
that it is more easy to process xslt if it's xml is subject to the above
criticsm but so is any XML. But that appears to be where XML has proved
popular. On the face of it it's just highly constraint sgml-for-beginners
with all the more interesting syntax possibilities thrown out, but it has
proved rather succesful and I think proved that there is a point to
forcing a common verbose syntax.

> I think that we are paying too much attention to the syntax.
'twas a question about syntax so the answers are somewhat syntax
based:-)

Anyway if you think xslt is too verbose to type longhand, go away and
write some MathML (or edit the mathml spec:-) then when you come back to
xslt you'll be so happy at how concise it is... Yes, there is a place
for alternative syntaxes aimed at authoring...

David


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