XSL and the semantic web

[Paul Prescod]

Marcelo Cantos wrote:
> 
> 
> But haven't you been arguing for providing FO's _at_the_server_?  If
> you are suggesting transforming at the client, then you are
> _favouring_ the semantic web!  I am really confused now.

We are all in favor of the semantic web. It's motherhood and apple pie.

Some people think that any technology that allows people to put
non-semantic information on the Web is a bad technology. I respond 

 a) every server-side technology since CGI has allowed people to dumb down
their information including but not limited to the DOM, 

 b) dumbing down information is an information provider's right in a
capitalist society.

Therefore the fact that XSL *can* be used in this way is irrelevant. It
can also be used to transmit rich information to client machines. And if
it is abused on the server side, well, that's okay with me also. I know of
some large databases that would have otherwise been dumbed-down-to-the-Web
through CGI that are now being dumbed-down by XSL. I don't see that as a
legitimate argument against either CGI or XSL.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

[Woody Allen on Hollywood in "Annie Hall"]
Annie: "It's so clean down here."
Woody: "That's because they don't throw their garbage away. They make 
        it into television shows."

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