RE: XSL formatting model

 Lee,

You are not alone with your confusion about XSL abandoning HTML/CSS.
Many people have asked similar questions to this list. The problem is
that HTML has little function outside of the Web. Until CSS, it wasn't
even very good at being a Web medium. For example, Web developers have
had to rely on tables, often nested, to attain desired layouts of text
and graphics. Ouch.

I cringed when I first read the XSL proposal. HTML flow objects? That
proposal is certainly easy to learn for the HTML-aware, but roots XML to
HTML. If HTML is to be the output format for XML, I would deem the XML
effort wasted.  The beauty of XML is that it steers the Web away from
HTML, back to SGML. Real documentation is never written in HTML,
restricitng its presence on the Web. SGML and XML can be converted to
HTML, but lose so much in the process. HTML may be easy, but it doesn't
do anything.

I have enjoyed playing with MSXSL. It certainly gives us a first taste
of formatted XML. There are vast warehouses of SGML, needing only minor
modifications, that are waiting for the day that they can be seen
through Navigator or IE without being converted first to HTML.

Richard.


Richard Lander
Richard.Lander@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.microstar.com
Microstar Software

relander@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/relander/XML/index.html
University of Waterloo English - Rhetoric and Professional Writing

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee Fife [SMTP:lee.fife@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 1998 5:51 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: XSL formatting model

I'm trying to understand what appears to be the WG's current intention
to create a new formatting model, based on flow objects, for web output
that is not equivalent to HTML 4 + CSS 2.

Naively, this seems to be bad idea. Doesn't build off existing practice
and implementations, goes against the market direction, complicates XSL
and possibly reduces its acceptance.

But, the folks on the WG are bright and experienced. I'm sure they're
not heading in this direction w/o thought.

So, explanation please? What's the rationale for abandoning the proven
and deployed formatting model represented by HTML/CSS and attempting to
develop a new model? (The only explanation I've seen offered so far is
that the original XSL note described generating really ugly HTML that
wouldn't behave well in various display environments. The obvious fix
here is to generate better HTML, not to abandon the currently proven web

display model.)

-Lee


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