Signs on the Sand

First working draft of XSL 1.1 has been published.

Version 1.1 updates the XSL 1.0 Recommendation for change marks, indexes, multiple flows, and bookmarks, and extends support for graphics scaling, markers, and page numbers.

For those unfamiliar, that's XSL-FO spec, XML vocabulary for expression formatting semantics for high-quality paginated presentation. I've been XSL-FO zealot back in 2001-2002, working with it very closely implementing XSL-FO output channel (pdf, tiff, fax, printer) for the system I was working on that time, contemplating on this IMO the biggest W3C Recommendation ever (400+ pages), evangelizing XSL-FO by helping people on many mail lists and working on Apache FOP project (hey, I'm still olegt@apache.org). That was great experience. XSL-FO is a successor of DSSSL and has plenty of extremely interesting people from document-centric publishing world around it, yeah that was great. Nowadays that's even impossible to dig out Joe English's DSSSL song out of the NET, anyway here is another dsssl song by Tony Graham (just to make you feel that spirit):

I Use DSSSL
By Tony Graham (to the tune of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" by Andrew Lloyd-Webber)

This won't be easy,
you'll think it's strange.
When I try to explain how I print -
that I use an ISO standard
after all that I've done.

You won't believe me.
All you will see is the good output,
although it's dressed up to the nines -
it started with S-G-M-L

I had to let it happen.
I had to change.
Couldn't stay being proprietary.
Stuck with one vendor,
No choice of software.
So I choose freedom.
Running around, trying everything new.
But nothing impressed me at all.
I never expected it too.

Don't cry for me, I use DSSSL.
The truth is it is quite good:
Style sheet language,
Flow object tree,
A choice of backends. You should try it.

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