Re: [xml-dev] XSLT syntax (was: Re: What niche is XQuery targeting?)

[Vladimir Gapeyev <vgapeyev@seas.upenn.edu>]

So, according to the previous posts, there are valid reasons for having
XML-based XSLT syntax, and for having a more humane variant.

Question: why can't this be the case, so that we enjoy the benefits of
both?  I.e. why can't we have two isomorphic syntaxes for XSLT, both
blessed by a standards body --- similar to the two syntaxes for RelaxNG.
(The blessing is important -- I've heard about enthusiasts attempting
this, but what are their chances of reaching wide adoption?)

Here are a few guesses why:

(1) There are known strong technical reasons such a human-readable syntax
is problematic.  (E.g. we cannot guarantee having non-lossy translations
back and forth, even for "a majority" of stylesheets.)

(2) Defining a human-readable syntax is too much work (even if starting
from a contributed draft proposal), and W3C didn't feel enough pressure to
charter a WG for this.

(3) The pressure on W3C is nowhere to come from: the overwhelming majority
of XML programmers couldn't care less.

Is any of the guesses valid?  Do I miss another possible explanation?

(I personally hope (2) is the strongest reason...)

Vladimir