AWT is dead now

Tue Mar 21 01:01:00 GMT 2000

Per Bothner wrote:
> One exciting idea I want to explore is to use the XSL
> "formatting object" model for views. See http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/
> We could base the implementation on FOP ( http://xml.apache.org/fop/ ),
> which is an open-source implementation in Java sponsored by the Apache
> XML Project. FOP can generate pdf - and it also includes
> a viewer, so it could form the basis for a "view engine".

"A tool is a great tool if it is used in a context for which it wasn't
designed." Obviously FOP is a great tool implementing an ambitious idea,
I agree. 
Anyway, we've been using XSL for over one year now when it was *one* 
specification. Nowadays it has been splitted into *three* specifications: 
XSLT, XPath and XSL FO. We are quite happy with XML/XSL/XPath combination, 
although the XSL processor's performs weakly when used with big XML source 
documents. Due to modifications in the spec we were forced to rewrite our 
XSL a couple of times. XSLT and XPath are now recommendations so this 
doesn't apply anymore. XSL FO is still a working draft which has
had significant modifications over the time. FOP doesn't implement the
current XSL FO specification. I think James Tauber left as an active
developer. XSL FO is a *huge* specification and the implementation needs
a lot of skills, knowledge, time and energy.
If this all sounds too destructive let me say this: in a year from now libgcj 
might have AWT and/or Swing, the XSL FO specification is a W3C recommendation, 
FOP has implemented 60% of the specification and someone might want to start 
using FOP with libgcj.
JÃƒÂ¶rg