xml-dev - Re: FOs again

[Peter Murray-Rust <peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>]

At 05:38 PM 6/16/00 -0400, Amy Lewis wrote:
>Following the discussion of FOs here, I thought that I needed to know
>more, so I went off and reread the requirements doc and the current
>spec.  That made me unhappy.  The requirements doc reads rather like
>a laundry list; the spec in turn rather like a receipt ("okay, did
>that one, what's next?").  That is, there seems to be no overall
>vision, or integrity, to the documents, so they go on and on and on.
>
>So, with perhaps ill-becoming immodesty, I'm going to propose a set
>of overall goals.

I think these are excellent and have the same flavour as the 10 goals of XML.

>
>First some assumptions.
>
>Thesis: XML, unlike its predecessor SGML, is most likely to be first
>encountered electronically, not hard copy.
>
>Thesis: XML, unlike HTML as practiced on the web, contains no implicit
>styling embedded in its tags (I'm thinking of things like lists,
>horizontal rules, and tables, which are at least as much stylistic
>tags as they are logical tags).

Other theses:
	XML documents will frequently be created by machine, but humans will wish
to read (parts of) them. Examples might be log files,  statistical
analyses, search results. These are more assimilable if presented prettily,
but page fidelity is not critical.

	XML documents with often be multi-author and multi-namespace. Readers will
probably accept changes of style along with changes of content. (Echoes of
camera-ready publications:-)


[...]
>
>5. XSLFO should be completed as soon as is humanly possible, in order
>to be deployed within the first-generation Xweb, rather than having
>to achieve penetration into a welter of conflicting deployed solutions.
>
>6. Core XSLFO should be as simple to use as possible, with an
>understandable, brief specification, and hooks to allow further
>development in any desired direction.
>
>Summary: keep it simple, finish it soon, and focus on display on
>electronic devices with default behavior for other display types;
>make it extensible to provide finer control both on display (as
>desired) and on other devices.

I particularly agree with the last two goals FOP is already almost usable
for some purposes - Michael Wright - working with Henry Rzepa has written a
60 page thesis in XML (about, and featuring, CML], transformed to XSL-FO
and rendered (in print) with FOP. It looks very attractive and (IMO) no
less presentable than many Word documents. Michael has worked with a
pre-release version of FOP and there are also many things that can't be
done, but there are a lot that can. [We hope that Michael's work can be
displayed soon]. 


	P.

Peter Murray-Rust. (CML, VHG and XML-DEV)
CMLC and VirtualXML ConCourse: http://www.cmlconsulting.com/
CML http://www.xml-cml.org/
Virtual HyperGlossary http://www.vhg.org.uk/

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