I'd also say that fo: is only as complicated as professional print quality document layout. Which can give me a headache all by itself. If iText is simpler than fo: it's because there are things you may want to do with a document which iText won't do for you (we dropped it and went to fo: because we felt this).
Conversely, I think that as a language, xsl: is much less complex than java. It's maybe just that we're all used to java-style languages with variable assignment so we think they're easier. I now find xsl: pretty simple after 2 years working with it, whilst I can frequently get bogged down in java. It's just hard to get used to a language which is very focussed on one task rather than aimed at generality: kind of like switching to a wirestripper after years of getting by with a swiss army penknife. Alistair -----Original Message----- From: Joerg Pietschmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 9:08 AM To: FOP Dev Subject: RE: Why do you use FOP instead of ... Roland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wrong! Look at iText http://www.lowagie.com/iText/ to see how simple their > examples are. They build a complex table with just a few lines of java > codes. Try doing the same with the XML/XSLT/XSL:FO approach and I guarantee > you that the total outcome will be much more both in lines and complexity. > I think to generate PDF with iText is as easy as generating XML from Java. > XSLT is just a complicated language. You seem to assume that everyone wants to generates PDF form a Java program, using XML/XSLFO only as intermediate steps. In this case, you would have a point. However, it is possible that 1. The primary source is already XML (file or database), or you get XML from a source you can't control (for example a web service). 2. Apart from PDF, you have to present the same information in another format, in particular (X)HTML, perhaps and/or WML, VoiceXML, SVG ... I have to note we also generate source code in various programming languages as well as DDL and initial databease input from our XML using XSLT. If one of the above is true for a project, XSLT+FO can save some work and ease maintenance. If you have both, it's a very strong case for using XSLT+FO, other approaches are getting unmaintainable quickly. Regards J.Pietschmann --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
