Daniel Veillard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 05:38:02AM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> > xmlif knows nothing about the XML structure of the document. All it `sees'
> > is the processing instructions what is otherwise, from its point of view,
> > a featureless byte stream.
>
> Then there is no good reason to implement it in an XML toolkit, really.
> Using sed sounds the right tool for the job.
You seem to be missing the point, here.
I don't want to write ad-hoc sed scripts every time I want to conditionalize
a document, any more than I want to write a single-use XSLT hack every time I
want to conditionalize a document. Such approaches could only appeal to
someone who is in love with XSLT or sed. I'm not.
I want a simple tool that I can re-use. Without having to edit my
documents every time I want to generate a different variant. Without
constantly writing custom stylesheets. I have work to get done!
I tried the politically correct XML-purist approach. It sucked.
There are weaknesses in XSLT 1.0 that make it unsuitable for this job
-- specifically the fact that a stylesheet can't see the input
doctype.
So I've written a tool that throws away that whole level of structure and
gets the job done. I'd sure like to develop a better solution, but you
seem to be intent on denying there is a problem.
--
<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
