Re: Future of XSL Stylesheet Writing?

A long time. This certainly isn't going to be the most educated reply,
but I'm not sure if I can even think of an example of higher level
products (WYSIWYG) precluding the need for technicians working on the
lower level. Wouldn't HTML be the perfect case study--does any other
language exist which has a greater amount of products dedicated to
encapsulating it (Dreamweaver, etc)? And yet manual CSS/HTML hackers
are not waiting tables just yet. =)

-S

Also, I urge you to scan the archives because phobias such as this are
presented on this list rather routinely.

On 9/26/07, Steven Janoff <Steven.Janoff@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Newbie here, well-trained recently in the XSL arts, with a
> career-related question.
>
> Been in technical publishing and related fields long enough to see
> several generations of publishing solutions where "hot" skills go cold
> or cool.  E.g., TeX coding skills replaced by secretary using Word;
> HTML/CSS hand-coding skills replaced by graphic designer using
> Dreamweaver.  And so on.
>
> Now I'm knee-deep in XSLT/XSL-FO stylesheet writing.  I've wondered how
> long these skills would be "hot" before being replaced by
> much-less-skilled workers using a WYSIWYG XSL editor to create
> stylesheets, without knowledge of the underlying XSL code.  And I see
> the recent announcement of the first such tool (or the first I've heard
> of), primarily applied to visual FO development.
>
> How many years do you think it will be before the skills celebrated on
> this list -- writing XSLT/XSL-FO stylesheets the "old-fashioned" way,
> understanding the code -- will be supplanted by the scenario described
> above, as happened with the earlier tools?
>
> Will these skills serve me for a number of years (5? 10?), or will I be
> looking for the next suite of tools to learn in just a few years as
> grandmothers around the world start creating PDFs in XSL-FO at the push
> of a button?  That's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.
>
> I've written this post in at least 6 ways (some much longer, some
> shorter), but the fundamental question is the same:  Will these skills
> be bankable in 5 or 10 years?
>
> Thanks for your honest assessment here.  No one on the list can be
> expected to predict the future, but the vast wealth of background among
> you suggests that an "educated guess" from this list is about as close a
> prognostication as you can get to what will actually happen.
>
> Steve
>
> --
> Steve Janoff
> Information Manager, Specialty Engineering
> General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
> Tel. (858) 312-3255 (New number)
> Fax (858) 312-4668 (New number)
> Steven.Janoff@xxxxxxx