Thanks everyone for your ideas and advice. Definitely a lot to think
about.
My task is to explain how one specific XSL-FO transform works with the
goal of modifying it to change its output. As Wendell pointed out, a
huge challenge will be figuring out what level to engage the audience
at, and how to fit everything within my 45-minute time limit. I just
won't have time to teach XSLT itself to people who aren't already
familiar, but if any of those wander in, maybe I can convince them to
learn.
I'll have to try the approach Jim wrote about in the future, even though
it doesn't really apply here. I was definitely one of those people who
had trouble discarding their imperative-programming mindset when I was
learning XSLT. I don't know if it's because imperative programming is
inherently easier to construct mental models of, or because it's just
what everyone is first exposed to. It's certainly easier to diagram.
Now the declarative way of thinking is second nature for me (at least
until I try to do something very recursive, or diagram it, apparently).
Whenever I've taught XSLT the hardest part is getting people to escape
that imperative-programming mindset. That always takes a while, and
until that "aha" moment, they can't really "get" XSLT.
I really like the Oxygen debugging mode idea. I'm going to experiment
with that. That, coupled with a big-picture flowchart (root template
-> apply mode #1 templates and store nodeset in variable -> apply mode
#2 templates to variable, etc.) might do the trick. My approach for
the talk itself is to spend my time on a general overview, showing what
is possible, and save the messier details and code samples for a
handout. If I can point out a few lesser-known XSL techniques and get
people thinking, I've done my job.
If any of you are at PTC/User this June, you're welcome to come by my
talk ("Hacking the Styler XSL-FO Stylesheet") and see how well I succeed
or fail.
Thanks,
-James
-----
James Sulak
Electronic Publishing Developer
Jones McClure Publishing
-----Original Message-----
From: Lech Rzedzicki [mailto:xchaotic(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 5:19 AM
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Cc: csi2000(_at_)urbanmarket(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [xsl] Diagramming XSLT
On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 9:32 PM, CyberSpace Industries 2000 Inc.
<csi2000(_at_)urbanmarket(_dot_)com> wrote:
Short of this - I also have been musing on creating an animation
showing a
similar thing to explain how the XSLT processor works. So far I
haven't
found an animation tool that lets me create such an animation easilty.
[Suggestions?]
Cheers..Hugh
I come from a technical writing background and depending on what
exactly you want to do, there's tons of tools for screen casts like
Camtasia Studio, Captivate etc, but I dare say that Adobe/Macromedia
Flash might be the best suit for your needs of animation.
Creating animated movable content is really easy even for
non-programmers - put a box somewhere, keyframe, move it somewhere,
keyframe 15secs later and you 've got a nice animation of a moving
box. For more complex stuff, sky's the limit.
The advantage is that you can run .swf flash files via browser on any
platform.
Hope that helps,
Lech
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