xml-dev - Re: Why I dislike CSS

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 12:36 AM 6/19/00 +0100, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>Simon St.Laurent writes:
> > I can't use a validating XML parser to verify that my XSLT is correct,
> > except inasfar as it is well-formed, either.  XSLT's design bascially
makes
> > such verification impossible
>
>That's very harsh. The RenderX work shows that you can go a long way
>with DTDs, and I am sure something like Schematron could provide an
>excellent XSLFO validator.

I'm not sure that a CSS validator is that much more difficult to build than
an XSL validator, however.  

The W3C has one already, for instance.

In either case it takes more than a straight-up validating XML parser.

> > CSS isn't 'part of the family' because it was around long before XSL, and
> > was basically ahead of the curve as far as convinving HTML developers that
> > separating style from content was a good idea.
>Shame it didn't have that effect, then :-}

I don't know that XSL will have that effect now, either.

> > I really dislike being forced to use XSL, but figure that the perpetual
> > delays on XSL-FOs might spare me from having to use a grotesquely clunky
> > language to solve the kinds of simple work that CSS does very elegantly.
>
>So, what *do* you use for Amy's Mom and Pop printing work? You have a
>CSS implementation that does Word-standard pagination?

I don't - but CSS has pagination facilities as well.  What exactly does
XSL-FO provide that CSS doesn't, again?

> > So apart from the fact that CSS isn't XML, it seems to fit your needs.
Why
> > not do a simple bit of XML-izing? 
>
>Thats exactly what she did, didnt she? and she ended up with what
>looks to me like a subset of XSL FO. Which seems to prove to me that
>the XSL FO *do* follow the CSS work?

I'd like something that would let me use selectors instead of XPath and
transformations, please.

Thanks!


Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

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