Re: MSXML happening for a reason !

[Mike Brown <mike at skew dot org>]

> Personally I am committed to the alternate model :
> 
> Here is the data,
> Here is how I expect you to view it.
> 
> It then comes under the control of the client (which isn't always a
> browser) if they choose to parse it to your graphic layout.

The problem is, the natural tendency is to write the "here is how I expect
you to view it" not in terms of compatible standards but in terms of real
client functionality.

When the clients take a "step forward" as you put it, delivering some
additional features that are not interoperable and that are beyond the
scope of standards or in violation of them, the viewing instructions
get deeper into the realm of client-specific rendering instructions and
behavioral controls. XHTML 1.1 will address some of this, but without
vendor support... *sigh*

<more_pessimism>
XSLT is about building up a tree of related objects, possibly based on the
contents of other such trees, while XSLFO provides definitions of objects
in a page layout model, such that XSLT can be used to generate a tree of
XSLFO objects. In theory, XSLFO, if it ever becomes robust enough for the
web, will be a neutral middle layer of abstraction that all clients can
support equally.

However I fear that in the real world, a "visual" XSLT processor such as
IE5 that demands creation of HTML with IE5-specific scripting in the
result tree, rather than XSL formatting objects, will win out because it
actually works, right now.
</more_pessimism>

   - Mike
________________________________________________________________________
 Mike Brown / Hyperreal   |  Hyperreal http://www.hyperreal.org/music/
 PO Box 61334             |     XML & XSL http://www.skew.org/xml/
 Denver CO 80206-8334 USA |       http://www.hyperreal.org/~mike/


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