xml-dev - Re: XLink: behavior must go!

["Martin Bryan" <mtbryan@sgml.u-net.com>]

Paul Prescod wrote:

>You and I agree that various document types have differnet behavioral
needs. We agree that there is no way that we can define everything that
needs to be done in advance. I think that we agree that usually behavior
should be defined in stylesheets, though there are a few cases where it
should be defined inline.

Not my words. I think that there are times when you want to be able to
contol the behaviour inline, not define the behaviour inline. I want to
provide a declarative property, not a procedural one.

>You demand that when it is inline it should
always be expressed in the same attribute. I claim that this will
interfere with the goal of extensibility and interoperability.

Only if we have a common attribute will we be able to share processing
modules among applications. My goal is to be able to have processing modules
that I can import into any XSL stylesheet that processes a document using
XLinks to allow me to link from the request for data to my local (or
external) databases, undertaking appropriate transformations to turn the
data stored in the warehouse into the form that the author of the document
wants it.

While I can introduce your suggested martin:behaviour attributes into my DTD
I cannot introduce them into someone elses DTD. If I am using an industry
standard DTD that uses XLinks how can I control standardized processes that
are known to work in my environment

Saying I should just change stylesheets does not necessarily work as it
depends on where control of stylesheet association takes place. At present
we have not mechanism for local overrides of stylesheets. What I want is a
mechanism that will allow me to control the working of imported sytlesheet
modules on an instance by instance basis, without having to write special
instances of stylesheets for each document instance.

Martin Bryan


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