WordProcessingML and XSL-FO: too interesting to ignore

I was pleased to see that Oleg Tkachenko, XML luminary, picked up on our publishing of the XSL-FO for WordProcessingML. He writes:

"Hmm, good move, I like it."

OK- he wrote more than that! He notes other things in the post, and I agree with him that XSL-FO does need some decent design tools. Where is XSL-FO Spy? Too much to ask for I guess. I think a lower price is in order as well. I find it interesting that with as widespread as XML is, there are only a few really good XML studio environments out there. The ones baked into VS are....OK, and they have their highlights. I had higher hopes for the ones in VS 2005, to be honest. I just feel that shelling out the Benjamins for VS and then having to swipe the debit card one more time for a full suite of XML tools is too much. Maybe I just haven't discovered all of the XML features in the VS 2005 IDE yet. Give me time (or I'll wait until a PM on VS schools me in an email!)

Second Rock Thought for the day: One of my favorite rarities is an eclectic track by Jethro Tull, "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles." It's a children's story and quite charming, with sound effects and all. Only They Might Be Giants seem to be able to pull this kind of thing off nowadays.

Rock On