More fun with MSIE

[Chris Maden <crism@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Today I sat down to develop my first real XSL stylesheet, using MSIE
5b2 as the previewer.  Imagine my joy to discover in their
documentation that they don't support <xsl:process/> or
<xsl:process-children/>.

Based on discussions within the WG (and I don't think this is breaking
confidence), it looks like MS is implementing the parts of XSL they
like, and are simply ignoring the parts that do not fit with their
strategy.  MS has indicated a clear preference for <xsl:for-each> and
top-down models over <xsl:process> and procedural models.  So that's
what they've implemented.

I'd like to see some indication from Microsoft that this is not the
case, and that at least the transformation portion of the
specification will be implemented.  I can not maintain stylesheets for
my documents without <xsl:process>.

MS says:

   The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working draft for XSL divides
   the language into two main parts: transformation and formatting
   semantics. This release supports the transformation part of the W3C
   XSL specification.  Non-MS link Microsoft is tracking the W3C
   working draft and will be updating this implementation to match the
   final W3C recommendation.

Given that the second sentence is false, I have no reason to believe
the third.

-Chris
-- 
<!NOTATION SGML.Geek PUBLIC "-//Anonymous//NOTATION SGML Geek//EN">
<!ENTITY crism PUBLIC "-//O'Reilly//NONSGML Christopher R. Maden//EN"
"<URL>http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/crism/ <TEL>+1.617.499.7487
<USMAIL>90 Sherman Street, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA" NDATA SGML.Geek>


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