Re: CSS vs. DSSSL-O

Jon Bosak wrote:
> 
> The default style sheet language for the W3C SGML Web activity is
> dsssl-o (see the activity page).  We don't need much discussion of
> that right now, but we do need some development if we want to
> demonstrate this by April; that's what I was suggesting.

Ok but if that is a done deal, why is it a work item?  
I hope that comes up for debate.  The 
CSS guys have their case to make.  DSSSL-O has 
few implementations whereas XML gets quite a few with 
some simple adjustments.  If a vendor chooses to 
support CSS, why should that make it impossible to 
support XML as well?  Why isn't a stylesheet type 
on a par with any other notation, eg. as a MIME type?
 
> | Parsing and hyperlinking are relatively trivial (to implement) by
> | comparison.
> 
> I hope you're right...
> 
> Jon

So do I but I've been through the debate before and it 
wasn't that simple to choose.  Hyperlinking has some 
notable variants and existing standards.  Tim is probably 
right that adopting some HyTime concepts will help.

We might consider looking at the legacy out there, IOW, 
how many ways have hyperlinks been defined in existing 
SGML applications, where are they similar and different, 
and how can XML support these.  While the work on DOCBOOK, 
TEI, Mosaic etc cited in your speech are examples, so is the preexisting 
and well documented and well-supported work done in MIL-D-87269, MID,
proposals 
to MIL-PRF-28001, the Philly DTD, etc.

BTW, for the Quran test file, is this right?

<!ELEMENT  tstmt       - - (tttitle, fm, sbtitle, sura+ ) >
<!ELEMENT  sura        - - (bktlong, bktshort, epigraph, v+ ) >
<!ELEMENT   v          - - (vn, p ) >
<!ELEMENT   epigraph   - - (p+ ) >
<!ELEMENT   fm         - - (p+ ) >
<!ELEMENT   bktlong    - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   bktshort   - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   v          - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   vn         - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   ttitle     - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   sbtitle    - - (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT   p          - - (#PCDATA ) >

Also, see verse 78 of The Cow.  Arc should be are.

That one was easy.     Good reading too.
The files are a bit big for test files though.  
IDEAS handles them without a burp but the size 
is overkill for testing.

len

Received on Monday, 25 November 1996 22:59:38 UTC