Re: Status of XSL and CSS?

Bill Wadley wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> I'm wondering what the current thinking is regarding XSL and CSS. I've read
> some archived messages by Paul Prescod and Simon St.Laurent
> (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-svg/1999Feb/), but can't tell in
> which direction the SVG-WG is looking.

The basis of the debate was that SVG diagrams are not generalized markup
and therefore the usual principles of stylesheet use DO NOT APPLY. SVG is
a formatter-specific graphics language. Stylesheet use in SVG document
will be rare for the same reason that stylesheets are hardly ever used in
vector graphics languages and formatting-specific languages like Word.
Most SVG will be generated SVG-creating tools will not encourage and may
not even allow stylesheet use.

I argued that since most SVG will be generated and stylesheet-less it
should be optimized for ease of generation, and should not penalize
"inline style" in the way that HTML does (for historically good reason).

So no, my position is not that XSL is better for SVG. CSS is great -- just
don't make it so difficult to use and process. Stylesheet use should be a
valid choice. Inline style should be another.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"The Reduced * Set (R*S) is a design paradigm promoting simplicity 
over all other design constraints. R*S may be applied to all 
seven OSI networking layers. In fact, layers one through six 
may be simplified to the point of extinction, promoting the 
ultimate goal of reduced complexity and utility."
 - http://www.w3.org/1999/04/REC-Reduced-set

Received on Wednesday, 7 April 1999 23:24:58 UTC