Re: request for XML resources
On Fri, 10 Nov 2000, Cory Snavely wrote:
> > > > More seriously, there is not yet any XML+XSL browser which anyone reasonable
> > > > find ready.
> >
> > Really? I find that hard to believe, although I've not found much yet
> > either. I can't imagine that a modified web browser that displays pages
> > using XML, DTD, and XSL files doesn't exist.
>
> Keep in mind that a significant portion of XML technology hasn't much to
> do with text processing but with databases and application development.
> In fact it's my impression that's where the bulk of the interest lies,
> which was (and is still) not the case with SGML. SGML was always been
> largely applied to text processing.
>
Not so much a result of any change in the nature of an *ML, XML is
largely just a simplification of and additional syntax constraints
on, SGML. This different focus is a result of an abstracted view of a
document to include classes such as message passing in an OO system,
configuration files, files generally containing descriptive or
prescriptive data.
The lack of browser support is substantially in consequence of the
unfinished state of the XSL-FO portion of the specification. Work on
rendering for commercial browsers is pending the finished spec. IE5
incorporates a degree of rendering of XML utilizing some (pick your
epithet) extensions, at the expense of conformance with the XSL-T spec.
> > > I think it's fair to say that all of the James Clark software is
> > > widely-used and popular. It's one of the most interesting phenomena of
> > > the SGML/XML industry.
> >
> > How is this interesting? Is it Bad? Good? Is there anything I should know
> > before using it?
>
> It's interesting (to me, anyway) in that James Clark is (from what I
> hear) independently wealthy, yet contributes this fully-functional
> software that's not only popular among the user community, but is
> commonly used as a base component of many commercial products as well.
> It's a sort of open source success story. I'm sure he must be quite a
> guy.
>
I know nothing of James Clark's wealth. I understand that his
implementation of a conforming SGML parser is one of very few, if not the
only one, not developed under the aegis of a defense department
grant. Mr. Clark is active on several of the committees of the W3C and is
reknowned in the community for his readiness to undertake the development
of reference implementations of the groups' work. His programming skills
are rightly legend. His XSLT processor, XT, is the standard by which any
other is to be measured WRT both compliance and speed.
mike@haarman.net
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