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At 09:16 AM 7/9/2003 -0500, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>That would suggest that the problem today is not
>technical or political, but a matter of education.
Perhaps true now, but not very helpful - and lets creators of specs off the
hook without the education _they_ need to avoid creating such costs
again. The costs are real, and still here - and created by a single
organization!
>There simply are XML languages for which CSS is
>not useful or available. There are applications
>of CSS which are simpler and more elegant. Without
>discrimination, one will stumble.
Unfortunately there were a lot of choices made early that made such
"discrimination" a rather messy problem. I can choose any language I like
to solve a given problem, provided that I can invest in the learning and
the tools. That doesn't mean I want to have an ever-expanding toolset,
especially when the tools come from the same organization and purportedly
address the same problem set.
There are some relatively simple steps that could help break down the
differentiation. Creating a separate common spec for formatting properties
that is then used only by reference in both CSS and XSL-FO is probably the
most plausible. Reconciling XPath and CSS selectors could have helped long
ago, but I suspect at this point the CSS folks would be wise to give XPath
2.0 a wide berth - that split has given the XPath side room to grow with
little restraint.
>A spork is a technically effective tool, but not
>well-liked.
They work fine at KFC.
I don't think we needed a sporkish XCSSLT, though - just a
better-coordinated effort for reducing the costs of two specs. Too late
now, by far, I think.
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