> Yes; maybe the real question is: will _any_ solution based on "Floormatting
> Objects" ever work?  I have serious doubts about that.  I think it may be
> the wrong set of abstractions, or the right set packaged in the wrong way.

Yes, there are some design flaws. It's not easy to see all of them 
until you try to render some particular usecase. There is no suprize 
here - I can't  belive one can design a realy good language without 
constantly trying to use that language. 
 
> What is really missing in all of this is a rigorous formal (or even
> semi-formal) language (or meta-language) for formatting, which would allow
> us to describe unambiguously what we mean by running heads or dictionary
> heads or whatever.  I think this is what Paul was getting at when he wrote
> of XML-input + PDF-output.  Not coincindentally, a formal language would
> mean the interpretation of the spec is much less dependent on a mastery of
> English.

Exactly. Now I think the best appoach is to spend some time designing  
some special layer, but before this thread it was not obvious.

However,  I don't think the new layer requires  breaking the current design 
of XSL FO. To me XSL FO is more a theme than a finished composition
(and there are some clues about the possible layers... even those clues
are sometimes messy). However, the theme itself is very good and I 
see nothing comparable. I think it'l be a big mistake if XSL FO will die, 
because we'l need to reinvent something like XSL FO. However because 
there are  very  professional  persons in the WG I hope that  XSL FO will 
not die. I'm sure the next version of the WD will close many questions 
about the future of  XSL FOs, because it'l allow us to extrapolate the 
movement. At the moment we have only 2 points for extrapolation. 
Having 3 points will open the picture, I think. 

> I probably shouldn't post this; I've had virtually no time to work on this
> stuff since last Spring, and I have almost no time to engage in discussions
> about it now (much to my regret).  And needless to say, this expresses my
> own opinions and not those of the XSL WG, and maybe not even those of my
> management.  But in the interest of vigorous debate, bombs away....

I'm sure my letter expresses my oppinion, but not the oppinion of my 
management ;-)

Thank you for sharing your thouhgs. 

Rgds.Paul.

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