Re: Does the Crystal Goblet apply?

On 01/06/2014 05:12 AM, Tony Graham wrote:
> On Sat, January 4, 2014 1:14 pm, Dave Pawson wrote:
>> On 4 January 2014 12:47, Tony Graham <tgraham@mentea.net> wrote:
>>> On Thu, January 2, 2014 3:45 pm, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
>>>> I think you hit on a central point, which is education: tutorials, for
>>>> example. XSL-FO is not suffering low rates of adoption because it's
>>>> more
>>>> difficult to use than other technologies, it's suffering because it
>>>> hasn't been sold that well.
> ...
>> Backing up a bit. Arved has a valid point here.
>> IMHO DSSSL bombed (at least partially) due to lack of 'education'
>> (read usable documentation).
> We tried, Dave, Ken, and I:
>
> http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dsssldoc/contributors.html
>
> Apart from DSSSL being 'too much, too little, too late', it also lost out
> to XML fever, where most people jumped-ship to XSLT and XSL-FO as soon as
> that was an option.  Now CSS for print is the Next Big Thing, and XSL-FO
> is on the diminishing end.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Tony.
>
>
>
This kind of jumping from one technology to another is perhaps the major 
problem. Not that I've got an answer to it.

I can't really argue with the technology shift from imprints on clay 
tablets or inscriptions on parchment, to mass-produced printing 
(relatively speaking) through type, but one of the notable features of 
IT is the exponentially increasing frenzied pace of change. We had IT 
millennia ago, the people just didn't call it that. :-) For a variety of 
understandable but frequently not good reasons, as the centuries and 
decades and years advance, we have really gotten to the point where IT 
is out of control.

People who purport to know what they are saying call this kind of stuff 
disruption and innovation. It's actually more anarchy and chaos.

But you're right, we are increasingly at the point where people make 
significant IT changes so fast your head spins. You're mentioning the 
switch from DSSSL to XSL to CSS...I am having a hard time of keeping 
track of every new software methodology or language changes, let alone 
keeping track of all the apps and libraries out there.

Might not be the worst thing in the world if some hypothetical authority 
shut things down for a year and instructed IT people to try and improve 
things rather than invent new stuff.

Arved

Received on Monday, 6 January 2014 14:23:06 UTC