Américo Albuquerque wrote:
Hi
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
[mailto:owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of
Dimitre Novatchev
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2003 7:30 AM
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: [xsl] Re: XSLT model not "natural"? [was Re: [ANN]
FreeMarker 2.3 as an alternative to XSLT]
Maybe it is very hard for babies to start walking.
Well, in case you are visiting from Mars, I think I should point out
that human infants start to walk and to talk at a certain age without
any particular teaching or training effort whatsoever.
Meanwhile, various academic studies attest to the fact that neither
human infants nor adults start spontaneously writing XSLT stylesheets at
any age.
I think the above surprising facts go a long way towards explaining why
Mulberrytech, for example, is able to have a viable business training
people to use XSLT, and does not offer equivalent training in teaching
toddlers how to walk.
Shall we "protect" them from this difficulty and ensure they
were easily crawling around all their life?
Make a special tool/product to ensure this?
<sigh>
This analogy with toddlers learning to walk is surely one of the worst
metaphors I've heard in a long time. Not only do toddlers learn to walk
spontaneously with no adult intervention, but also, they necessarily
*must* learn to walk. There is no equivalent need for everybody to learn
XSLT. For all of it, it's just one more IT tool among many.
If another tool can be used for the same purposes and good results can
also be achieved, but with far less training effort, say, that may well
be an advantage that one should consider. Again, this is a question that
would have to be resolved empirically.
I posted the announcement here because I am interested in getting
feedback about FreeMarker's new declarative XML processing
functionality. I am not terribly interested in hearing dubious analogies
like this, that, besides being obviously absurd, do not contain any
useful content.
Well, maybe I'm being a bit oversensitive, but it seems to me that the
subtext of this ridiculous analogy was that it was meant as a put-down.
I think, in any case, that people should think more about what they're
saying before saying it -- like, whether what they're saying makes any
sense or has any constructive content whatsoever.... that kind of thing...
Best Regards,
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
new XML transformation capabilities, http://freemarker.org/docs/xgui.html
There is one, in portugal we call it a "spider" :)
And the only thing that cames "naturaly" is eating and sleeping, every thing
else has to be learn in some point of our life.
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