Comparing CSS and XSL: A Reply from Norm Walsh
Norm Walsh responds to a recent article about CSS and XSL, explaining how and
when and why you'd want to use XSLFO or CSS or XSLT.
Norman Walsh
Norman Walsh is a Senior Application Analyst at ArborText, Inc. ArborText develops industrial stength SGML
authoring and publishing tools and distributes these products worldwide. He has also
developed a number of Web resources,
including The Internet Font Archives, and is the author of Making TeX
Work, published by O'Reilly & Associates.
Norm telecommutes from the beautiful pioneer valley in western Massachusetts where he lives with his wife Deborah, two cats, and several frogs.
Articles by this author
Escaped Markup Considered Harmful
How do you carry HTML or XML around inside an XML document? Not by using CDATA
sections or escaping special characters, says Norm Walsh. Find out why embedding markup
this
way is wrong, and what alternatives there are.
Types of Entities
Part 1 of Norman Walsh's XML Q&A column on entities.
Entity Declarations, Attributes and Expansion
Part 2 of Norman Walsh's XML Q&A column on entities.
What Is a Schema
In the context of XML, a schema describes a model for a whole class of
documents.
Validity
What does it mean for a document to be valid?
Syntax
What does an XML schema look like, then?
DTDs
Aren't DTDs the Schema for XML?
Customizing the DocBook DTD, Part 3
Customizing the DocBook DTD, Part 2
Customizing the DocBook DTD
In this three-part excerpt from his new book, Norm Walsh describes how to modify
the DocBook DTD and customize it for your own applications.
Understanding XSL
In part 3 of this tour of XSL, Norm looks at the XSL features needed to write a
simple style sheet, and provides some exercises for continued learning about
XSL.
Comparing XSL and CSS
In part 2 of this tour of XSL, Norm looks at the differences and similarities
between XSL and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
The Extensible Style Language - XSL
XML offer Web developers the ultimate in flexibility -- the ability to write your
own tags. But how can you be sure your custom tags will be interpreted properly. Enter
XSL,
the style language for XML. Norm leads a tour of the salient points.
A Technical Introduction to XML
What is XML? This introduction to XML is geared towards a reader with some HTML
or SGML experience, although that experience is not absolutely necessary. This article
is an
update to A Guide to XML, which originally appeared in the Winter 1997
edition of the World Wide Web Journal.
Entities: What are They Good For?
What are entities in XML documents and how do I use them? The XML Q&A
column has the answers.
A Guide to XML
If you are looking for a good overview of XML, with sufficient technical detail,
then this article from the World Wide Web Journal is a good place to start.
Converting an SGML DTD to XML
How do I convert my SGML DTDs to XML? Norman Walsh explains the process and
pitfalls in this new column.
Understanding XML Schemas
Schemas are intended to be an improvement on DTDs, which are used to validate XML
documents. In this article, we review schemas and the new features described in the
W3C
working draft.
The XSL Debate: One Expert's View
Norm addresses the recent debate about the merits of XSL.
Getting Started with XML Programming, Part II
Norman Walsh looks at how to program to use the DOM as
programming-language-independent interface to documents. He shows how to interact
with the
DOM using Java.
Getting Started with XML Programming
How is processing an XML document really different than processing a plain old
text file?