Re: [xml-dev] Bag of ideas and breaking the formatting-structure barrier

["James Fuller" <james.fuller.2007@gmail.com>]

On 6/12/07, Brett Zamir <brettz9@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Thanks for your response. But while your suggestion might work to move
> items into say the style element of an XHTML document, wouldn't the
> original elements still be within the document? And I don't think this
> cuold offer the option of getting the styling (or scripting, etc.)
> content moved to an external file--in order to take advantage of the
> benefits of a complete separation of formatting from structure.

u could use something like xupdate.....though admittedly formally
specified updating mechanisms for xml are thin on the gound.

as for your specific question, if i understand your  email correctly
what u suggest is just a simple xslt (easier using XSLT 2.0).

If u are asking about opinions on such a technique I would offer;

Putting links  in source documents  become hard to manage
quickly...e.g. what  if u have several documents 'hard coded' with
places to move data to.o....and you want to do something like change
the name or location of the generated document...u need to change it
in all documents.

It is much easier to have an external process address data, instead of
embedding information in source docs.

I would also argue that your native format, it not being xhtml means u
are asking for everyone in the development workflow to have at least a
single xslt tranform before they 'see' something correctly..if u have
control over the environment perhaps this is fine.

as I see it the *only* benefit is some maintenance aspects by
separating content from style....but I maybe missing parts of your
puzzle.

btw the separate 'style from content' mantra has been beaten to death
on this list (and yours trully) for years....after one gets through
creating a few xslt frameworks other questions  like 'how do I know
the difference between what is style and what is content' start being
asked.....ultimately separating style (or semantics) from content is
removing information which maybe needed at some later point.

So my general advice these days is to not be so quick to apply this
abstraction everywhere, it typically is an 'early optimisation' which
in programming can be lethal.

hth, Jim Fuller