[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: xsl:sort in old MSXML
Claudio,
The magic combination of standards-adherence with wide accessibility (i.e. reach some high percentage of browsers) is still difficult to achieve with generic XML, perhaps even impossible on the client. (I leave aside the growing number of XML applications, such as RSS or SVG, that do an end run around this problem for their particular application.) This is because although 80-90% of what is necessary is standardized -- XML and XSLT -- the last 10-20% is *not*, and may remain so. :-( That's the part that configures the browser when the document is loaded, loading the appropriate stylesheet (perhaps letting the user select it), passing parameters in, and the rest, and provides the end user with whatever interface they need to configure and run things further. The sort of standard xml-stylesheet PI (the thing that goes "<?xml-stylesheet type='xsl' href='mystylesheet.xsl'?>") goes only part of the way there -- beyond a simple one-to-one relation between documents and stylesheets, with no parameters and no user-driven styling, we have to resort to proprietary interfaces such as the MS VB/Javascript stuff (which of course only runs in IE). So we route around the problem, processing the XML on the server to give browsers what they are used to: HTML. This processing can be either on-demand ("dynamic") or ahead of time ("batch mode"). HTML/CSS/scripting is powerful enough so that most anything can be achieved this way, dynamically over http when necessary (though scaling the system is harder than it would be in the client-side model) -- but it does mean that you can't serve up plain files, but have to run some kind of process on the back end. In turn, this means either access to a server (running Apache Cocoon, or something analogous such as the 4Suite engine in Python that I've been trying lately), or constraining yourself to the batch-processing model David and I have described. It's true that we lose many of the promised strengths of XML by doing this: there's a great deal that's attractive about being able to process on the client. But without a "killer app" (a breakthrough application that demonstrates the strength of the paradigm and brings all competitors with it), there appears to be no incentive for the browser vendors actually to get together and develop a standard API for loading and configuring client-side XSLT. (For whatever reason, they prefer the zero-sum battle of proprietary interfaces to the positive-sum platform of a standard all can work with.) Consequently, if you *must have* your XSLT processing happen on the client, it's still very difficult (impossible) to stay browser-neutral. XUL, anyone? (Where did that go? Can you drive XSLT processing through it?) Cheers, Wendell At 09:06 AM 7/2/2003, Claudio wrote: But this will tie me up with a specific technology instead of begin adhering straight to standards and open tech. For sure this technology is one step ahead of the standard but unless is a standard by itself (which I doubt from the msgs coming to this list), will be difficult to see applications running smoothly in, lets say, at least 90% of the clients machines. ====================================================================== Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com 17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635 Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631 Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML ====================================================================== XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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