Re: xsl-fo first anniversary

On Fri, 2002-10-18 at 12:24, Éric Bischoff wrote:


> This is why I've dropped the idea to do
> 	SGML DocBook + DSSSL => Jadetex => PDF
> quite some time ago. Instead now my preferred way is
> 	XML DocBook + XSLT => FO => PDF

You seem to have missed out a step here. what takes from from FO to PDF?
some typesetting engine is involved at that point, and it must
be able to do the full gamut of writing directions etc. I know XEP
and Antenna House are getting better, but, unless I am mistaken, the
open source FO engines are not adequate to the job yet.

> Also, I have noticed that the learning curve is easier with XSL-FO than with 
> LaTex for complete beginners (if you keep them away from the reference 
> documents and point them to a good crash-course, of course).

the learning curve to learn what? you surely dont teach people to write
XSL FO in an editor? so you teach them XSLT transformation to XSL FO
vocabulary? in which case you are teaching a rather different skill.
 
> cryptic! and sometimes it is needed only because of the ageing software 
> architecture, like the static memory allocation techniques.

hard to see where these are relevant, to be honest, in this area
 
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Sebastian Rahtz      OUCS Information Manager
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