RE: xml.com

I fail to see what is inherently complex about XSL.  It basically does one
of two things with an element or object.  It either applies a programmatic
response, or affects a style change.  Complex?

-----Original Message-----
From: Barry van Oven [mailto:bvoven@baan.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 1:24 AM
To: www-style@w3.org
Subject: RE: xml.com


And I suppose there are no lists whatsoever on DHTML, DOM, CSS, JavaScript,
HTML, and the likes.

Compared to a mere one well known list for XSL, I'd deduct that XSL is
actually easier, even in its "beta" stage :-)

As far as I have been following the threads on the XSL list of which you
speak, I must say that the majority of these threads are discussions on XSL
still being in development, comments on the working draft, etc. The number
of threads complaining about the complexity of XSL is nowhere near a
fraction of all messages. Yes, there are a number of people (about 50%)
asking questions about XSL, just as there are tens of thousands asking
questions on the subjects I mentioned at the top of this message.

Questions being asked about a certain technology is in no way a measurement
of that technology's complexity. Granted, XSL as a whole is more complex
than CSS, but CSS is in no way XSL. If you really want to compare XSL to
CSS, you should only compare XSL formatting objects to CSS as a whole. If
you want to take XSL-T and the rest into accound, make sure you mention all
involved opposite technologies: DOM, CSS, and any scripting or programming
language required to manipulate the DOM (C easier than XSL, I think not!).

Barry

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Glazman [mailto:Daniel.Glazman@der.edf.fr]
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 9:49 AM
To: Barry van Oven
Cc: www-style@w3.org
Subject: Re: xml.com


Barry van Oven wrote:
> 
> XSL messy? Like learning three languages isn't messy. At least XML + XSL
> adheres to one set of syntax instructions.
> 
> XML + DOM + CSS forces you to learn three languages instead of one and a
> half...

Given the fact that (a) millions of people learned easily Javascript
(b) a CSS rule is understandable in a single glance (c) DOM can be used
for a lot of things, transformations being _only_ a small part of it,
the fact that XSL is XMLized make no difference. The XSL-list is still
full of people, people working with XSL every day, asking for help
because of XSL complexity.

</Daniel>

Received on Wednesday, 26 May 1999 12:05:27 UTC