Re: [xml-dev] Processing instruction guidelines

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: "Elliotte Rusty Harold" <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>

> >- - Control presentation of some lists as blocks or tables
> >- - Specify rotation for table cells
> >- - Specify background color for table cells
> 
> 
> All three of these could be controlled by stylesheet options or 
> separate stylesheets for separate effects. I'm not sure that would be 
> convenient enough but it could be done. It seems to me that this 
> mixes presentation with content. Putting the presentation info into 
> processing instructions instead of attributes really doesn't change 
> that. But maybe you do need to do this. I'm not sure.


They "could be" but why must they?  

People are happy that we have informal word processors where we
just apply bold when we want it.  And they are happy that there
are systems that separate presentation from markup.

But why should there not be mixed systems: that let you markup with
stylesheets some presentation effects and then override them for
and informal or particular use?

Writing an XSLT stylesheet is a matter of programming. The more
programming involved, the less ability a non-programmer has of
using the mechanism they can control (markup) to vary a document's
presentation according to their eye and taste. 

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe