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Re: AW: AW: AW: [xsl] commenting and documenting XSLT (small survey)

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I'll vote for this one :)

Citando Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Chris,
>
> At 08:01 AM 7/8/2004, you wrote:
> >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >a list
> >======
> >* item 1
> >* item 2
> >
> >with some *emphasized* or ``tt`` text
> >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >is very readable and quite "writable" as well. it is just a nice way to
> >write comments and it quite easy to process into XHTML afterwards.
>
> It is readable, and writable, but:
>
> Is it learnable? (how do I know that * delimits emphasis, except when it
> doesn't? what if I want bold not italics? what if I do ~this~, what comes
> out?)
>
> What happens when it contains glitches?
>
> How does an author know whether it is properly formed, without concepts
> analogous to XML "well-formedness" and "valid", and tools to implement
> their specifications? Is there any way to know the correctness of the input
> besides running the process and inspecting the output? If so, what is it
> and how is it specified? If not, who owns, controls, and maintains the
> ur-process that controls everything?
>
> Also, I question how easy it is to process into XHTML afterwards. It may be
> easy to do the first 80% but I submit that the last 20% -- and all the
> subsequent desiderata like "how do I make a list item with more than one
> line in it?" -- will probably drive you crazy.
>
> Part of what makes XML so powerful -- for those that have eyes to see -- is
> that it handles these questions in such a robust way. No, XML syntax is not
> perfect. But the syntax is just the beginning of a markup application, not
> the end. XML has not only got a syntax, it has a very sophisticated
> processing model as well, which can be used to address questions such as
> those I've asked above. Part of XML's sophistication is evident in how
> simple it appears to be, and basically is, while it can likewise scale in
> complexity to address very difficult, and various, problems.
>
> But that simplicity took years -- decades -- of experimenting with markup
> languages before anything solidified (it happened to be SGML) to the point
> that it could be reinvented as "XML".
>
> I like WikiML and the whole notion of reduced, learnable, plain-text markup
> conventions, and I'll take it as a sign of real progress when one emerges
> with a design compelling enough, and a processing model robust enough
> (it'll have to go beyond "check correctness by eyeballing output"), to
> unseat the currently-dominant paradigm. Anything not as dead-simple as
> <tag>this</tag> is going to be a pain to learn, teach, maintain.
>
> And it would be ironic if a utility you developed to help you maintain
> stylesheets became a maintenance headache of its own.
>
> You asked for opinions ... I agree with David and DaveP on this one.
>
> Cheers,
> Wendell
>
>
>
> ======================================================================
> Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
> 17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
> Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>    Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
> ======================================================================
>
>

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