Why is there no WYSIWYG for XSL and XSLT?

Why is there no WYSIWYG for XSL and XSLT?

What about WYSIWYG for XSL (and XSLT)? I hear constantly about XML Spy as the bees-knees for XML and XSL, but for laying out views and reports, like Word or even FrontPage, it ain't. Why is formatting and transforms of XML so complex? Can't somebody put the Access query builder and the FrontPage page layout tools together into one, easy to use GUI?

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There is a complex mismatch between the generalized hierarchical structure of XML and the flow-based layout paradigm of WYSIWYG tools. This mismatch leads to complex styling. In nearly 15 years of SGML and now XML, I have not seen any fundamental breakthroughs in making this process easier.

This was first published in April 2003

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