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> From: Gilger.John [mailto:JGilger -at- acresgaming -dot- com]
>
> When many of these standards and their predecessors werer
> developed, typewriters were the only tool available for the
> writer. The government printing office, or one of its
> contractors, took care of design and layout issues.
>
> Believe it or not, word processors and desktop publishing are
> a _very_ recent phenomonem. :)
John,
But it is exactly because of the fact that SGML/XML does _not_ need a
word processor or a DTP package to be formatted that makes this lack of
sound presentation so remarkable!
With a FOSI / DSSSL / XSL-FO stylesheet you have the ability to format
huge amounts of data with a very low investment of time when it comes to
creating the stylesheet. There lies the crux, i.e. that AECMA did not
spend more time on sound design of the recommended stylesheet.
