Finality of XSLT specs (was: xslt question)

Subject: Finality of XSLT specs (was: xslt question)
From: David_Marston@xxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 10:38:16 -0400
Pankaj (or "tcg") writes:
>Though you [Michael Kay] have published [sic] the book on xslt
>but the final specifications are not out yet.

We just dealt with this on this very list last week! The W3C
uses the word "Recommendation" to describe a final version of
a specification. If you just go to the document at
http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt
you can read these words:
+ This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested
+ parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C
+ Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference
+ material or cited as a normative reference from other documents.
That's as "final" as they get!

>How do you justify us buying this book when the specifications are
>not clear.
The specifications *are* unclear in some passages, and Mike's book is
one attempt at making them clear. The XSLT Working Group is taking
feedback about unclear parts, leading to the possible issuance of an
errata document.

>In other terms could you highlight what the book could provide with
>the specifications in the current scenario with a scope for
>the new ones.
The notion of a later version, 1.1 or 2.0, is separate from the idea
of collecting errata about the 1.0 recommendation. At this stage,
the new version is unfocused and certainly doesn't deserve treatment
in a book. That would lead to what you said you don't want: a book
that describes the specifications in a preliminary state. I would
say that the Working Group doesn't even have a "scope" yet. Better
to keep reading the messages on this mailing list and catch some
remarks about what should or could be in a later version of XSLT.

To forestall similar questions about related W3C specs:
XPath 1.0 is final.
XSLFO is not final.
.................David Marston


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