# FAQ

Why didn't you just use XML and let style authors use XSLT?

Because XSLT is ugly and difficult.

Why invent a whole new programming language and not just use, say, Perl and Safe.pm?

Believe me, a lot of options were considered. There are a number of reasons we "reinvented the wheel":

- The other wheels weren't round.

- Safe.pm isn't too safe.

- By making our own domain language, we make it easy to do the things which are common/specific to this problem. A short list:

  - The common operation is print. So we made an expression statement starting with a string literal be a print statement on that expression.

  - Large blocks of text are printed often, so we wanted the Python-style triple-quoted string literals.

  - We wanted layers of functionality/overridability.

  - We wanted a graphical wizard to be able to look inside the layers and see what options are available.

- It wasn't that hard.

- The language is very similar to other languages which geeks are already familiar with. The learning curve isn't too steep.

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