RE: The Lazy Syntax for XSLT, or TLSX

["Beckers, Marc" <Marc dot Beckers at softwareag dot com>]

> 
> Seems to me that if you're going to have another syntactic
> representation of XSL, it would make sense to use that of some other
> well-known language, for example, JavaScript or Java.  Probably still
> pretty easy to transform, and one less syntactic flavour to learn.
> 
Unless you know no programming language to start with.
Speaking as a technical writer, moving from DTP to Web publishing 
means that we must concern ourselves with stylesheet languages -
an additional, programming-like step in the documentation production
process.
Once you have written some XML, XSL is relatively easy to learn, even
if some consider it "verbose" (which, paradoxically, may be the reason
for it being easy to learn and read). I would hate to see XSL dragged
over-proportionately towards the "programmers' end" of the Web.

Of course, if by "another syntactic representation of XSL" you mean an
"additional" one, you can do what you want. I just want to break a lance
for us philologists whose XSL stylesheets are the only "programming" we
(want to) do.

Dr. Marc Beckers
Documentation Consultant
Software AG
Uhlandstraße 12
D-64297 Darmstadt
Phone +49-6151-92-1322
Fax              -1612
mailto:Marc.Beckers@softwareag.com
http://www.softwareag.com


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