Re: Venting

At 02:36 PM 2/11/99 -0500, Chris Maden wrote:
>[Simon St.Laurent]
>> But the CSS spec already does just about everything out there;
>
>Except non-European layout, bottom-of-page footnotes, synchronized
>flows, margin notes, format-dependent content (page numbers in cross-
>references), and some other stuff.  That's just off the top of my
>head.

International layout is on the way - see
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-i18n-format/.  Footnotes, synchronized flows,
margin notes - there's plenty of other ways to implement those through
transformations (and not nec. XSL) without creating a whole new world.  But
for some folks, that doesn't seem to be enough, and I guess they're the
ones most excited about reinventing the wheel.

And honestly, why are footnotes and margin notes really the domain of the
W3C?  What do these ancient forms have to do with the Web?

>> I can't say I've been overly impressed with the reinvention of the
>> (CSS) wheel that XSL FO's seem to me to be.
>
>The CSS wheel is oval and inflexible.  If I want a flexible-shape
>wheel, I'll start with an initial flexible oval, and then add the
>ability to do other shapes.

I'll stick to a lightweight and very flexible wheel that works, rather than
waiting for an over-wrought and extraordinarily pondrous device, thank you.  

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


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