Re: [xml-dev] XML and CSS

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

Jesper Tverskov wrote:
>> None of these are impossible barriers.  XML just never achieved the momentum
>> in this space to make them worth climbing.
> 
> I don't thing that is the full explanation. When looking back, I find
> it incredible to believe, that many of us once thought that "XML
> Browsing", meaning CSS styled homegrown XML, was a promising road to
> follow for webpages.

I don't find it that incredible, but then I was fond of CSS and looking 
for a path out of tag soup.

> I believe that I'm pretty good at CSS, but I have not the slightest
> idea of how I could style some XML to create a table with rows and
> columns, collspan, borders and shades, table headers, tbody, etc. Nor
> do I have the desire to solve such problems. Next time around with
> some other XML, I should reinvent the wheel one more time? Should all
> web developers really work like that, when it is easy to transform XML
> not made for display into XHTML made to make display easy?

I've never found the display properties to be that difficult, but then I 
rarely work with the kinds of tables that make designers crazy.  (CALS 
table models anyone?)  If only IE bothered to support them...

Colspan is the only piece I see in your list that actually looks 
difficult, and I suspect that's mostly because I haven't kept up with 
the latest in CSS.  I don't find CSS reuse particularly difficult, even 
with changing vocabularies, either, though again, I rarely tread into 
intensely detailed layouts.

On the other hand, I've never called XSLT 'easy', even with excellent 
training.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/