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Re: Re: XSLT model not "natural"? [was Re: [ANN] FreeMarker 2.3 as an alternative to XSLT]

2003-06-28 10:58:44
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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