Re: From CSS to DSSSL

Ian Graham wrote:
> DSSSL is far more powerful than CSS, but is simply too powerful
> (and complicated) for the majority of people creating Web pages.

I do not believe this to be true, and no amount of repetition will make
it true. Let us presume that we are starting with a blank slate DTD.
Let's say HTML, but the browser has no implicit stylesheet. If it helps,
imagine it as HTML with the letter Q added to the front of every element
so that the browser does not recognize it is HTML. Now what does the CSS
stylesheet look like? What does the DSSSL stylesheet look like? Which is
harder? 
If anyone agrees to write the CSS stylesheet, I'll write the DSSSL
stylesheet and we'll see which really is harder. I'll even let you skip
hard things like tables, hyperlinks and forms. We'll just talk about
formatting for a simple subset of HTML -- either of us could write the
DTD.

I don't know enough CSS and don't have the time right now to write both.
I'm really curious about this, and I'll admit if I'm wrong. It should be
obvious which is easier by looking at the code. I'll post the two to my
website along with my DSSSL tutorial. It will serve as an excellent
tutorial for CSS-heads in DSSSL and DSSSL-heads in CSS.

Who's up for it? 

 Paul Prescod

Received on Thursday, 17 April 1997 15:28:06 UTC