Re: Does the Crystal Goblet apply?

On 5 January 2014 00:20, Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 2014-01-04 at 14:23 +0000, Dave Pawson wrote:
>> O
>> I'm not proposing solutions, just options. In this case
>> some form of simpler syntax / terminology. I hope you'll agree
>> that CSS syntax (if not semantics) is easier than FO?
>
> In some ways CSS is simpler and some ways not.

As a simplification, I assert it is simpler. One judgement of
that is take-up - far greater for CSS than FO? (Cost ignored)



> CSS syntax is being cleaned up, but I think some of the simplicity is
> deceptive, because it doesn't do as much as FO. Some of the complexity
> of FO comes (unfortunately) from the spec

Yes. I'd put that back to JC et al. As Liam says, it is written for
implementers,
and should be precise. I still have the feeling that it could be precise without
being overly complex. Is the terminology used 'too much', too different?
Are sosofo's and flow objects so hard to grasp? Could we overlay other terms
for them?



> There might also be a lot of mileage in translations (whether in XSLT or
> otherhow) from CSS into FO, so that e.g. people could use xmlroff or fop
> with a CSS syntax.  Some constructs might be tricky to translate - e.g.
> static content on page masters is very different, and can be dynamic in
> HTML+CSS (but is not so easy to position where you want it).


Which makes the basic assumption that XSL-FO is the way forward.
Documenting it, clarifying it, layering it.

Do others feel the same? Or could we learn from it and produce
an alternate?


regards




-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
Docbook FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

Received on Sunday, 5 January 2014 08:17:11 UTC