Re: GRAND MASTER PLAN

On Wed, 2004-03-10 at 11:02, Charles Goodwin wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-03-10 at 15:47, Josh Sled wrote:
> > There's a big difference between HTML and XML.  I'd argue the majority 
> > of the [gnucash reporting] pain is due to generating HTML in lieu of a 
> > more appropriate [maybe XML-based] format.
> 
> Yay!  The voice of sanity.  To go from an aribitrary data-aware (ie. not
> layout-aware) XML format to any other format is easy with the smart
> application of XSL or any number of alternative approaches (eg libgda).

I really don't see how libgda is an alternative to XSLT, here.  At the
same time, I've seen some kinda specious things about how libgda should
layer against other things...

> [Un]hooking information into [and out of] HTML is a nightmare.  You'd do
> well to be rid of it.

The meaning of the data is the most painful aspect, and one of the
reasons I'd advocate RDF for the description.

There's a few aspects to what I've been hearing:

* applications providing meaningful and useful data only they 
  [currently] have can make available to callers.
* presenting that roster of data-elements to a user in the process of 
  report-creation.
* visual/print layout of a combination of those elements into a report
  and/or form.

I think goal 1 is a "mail-merge"-like, relatively unidirectional
version. Goal 2 is a more interactive request/response scenario.

Goal 2 is much further past Goal 1; to do it correctly you need to
describe the {data,query}-related capabilities of applications to each
other. [i.e., ReportingTool needs to know the available query-space
which GnuCash can support and how to GET the results of same]; requiring
a human in the loop forgives a multitude of description sins.

> The best trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that HTML
> is appropriate for anything other than simple documents.

Heh.  At the same time, basic XHTML + SVG + MathML with CSS's box/layout
model sure seems to resemble TeX...

...jsled

-- 
http://www.asynchronous.org/ - `a=jsled; b=asynchronous.org; echo ${a}@${b}`
# A: Because it breaks the flow of normal conversation.
# Q: Why don't we put the response before the request?