Re: XSL with scripting

At 11:32 PM 12/22/98 -0600, Paul Prescod wrote:
>"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:
>> 
>> "Users ceded"?  What?  Never mind.  Must have been one of those checks they
>> send out where if you cash it, you've signed a contract.  
>
>Yes, it is somewhat like that. When you consume the products that the W3C
>creates, you confer legitimacy just as if you were paying cash for them.

I see; it's sort of like saying that because I use municipal services like
trash pickup, I confer legitimacy and lose the right to vote.  I'll
remember that next time I put out the trash, and stick my voter
registration card to the top of the can.

>> Vendors confer
>> legitimacy on the W3C, not users.  Vendors have the votes, after all, not
>> users.
>
>As web developers we can ignore standards and they will die: client-side
>Active-X and client-side VBScript are examples. If developers chose to
>ignore W3C standards the W3C would cease to exist.

Sad to say, I've worked on projects using both of those, and the projects
remain up (and actively maintained) and the clients happy.  I wasn't the
one choosing the technologies, unfortunately.  Standards and death is an
issue for those of us too small to inflict our own standards.

And developers ignore W3C standards all the time.  Remember, there are no
'W3C standards' - only recommendations.  No conformance testing, no
requirements. By the vendors, for the vendors.  I'm curious to see where
this will lead XSL in particular, given the fairly collapsed state of the
client-side Web application market.

>You claim that open processes are the "next step". My claim is that the
>W3C won't reform until it is given incentive to do so. The only incentives
>I can think of are a) standards making competition and b) the risk of
>people ignoring W3C standards.

I'll push strongly for a), which I think may lead to b).  We'll see what
the new year brings, for XSL and the W3C.

Simon St.Laurent
XML: A Primer / Cookies
Sharing Bandwidth 
Building XML Applications (February)
http://www.simonstl.com


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