Re: [xsl] What's your visual metaphor for XSL Transformations?

[Kamal Bhatt <kbhatt@xxxxxxxxx>]

W Charlton wrote:
> I disagree with the infinity and Ouroboros analogies as these imply either
> that XML is infinitely deep (although in theory it can be, it never is
> because this is the real world, so it is always finite) or that there is
> some self reference or recursion in the XML, this is not true as XML is
> hierarchical.
>   
I agree it is n't the best metaphor (not unless you want an analogy of 
infinite recursion). It is probably more  of a simile. I guess it was 
n't really intended as an answer to the original post, but more of a 
"this is what I think of when I think of recursion". In the past I would 
often draw circles in the air when I was trying to deal with a recursive 
problem, which reminds me of Ouroboros.

The first applications of recursion I did was the Sierpinski triangle 
(gasket) [1], maybe you could consider that a visual metaphor for 
recursion, perhaps there are other fractal patterns that would be 
considered metaphors for recursion.

As an aside, I think the Sierpinski triangle is a much better example of 
recursion then the rather silly Fibonacci example given in most text 
books. I found it more beneficial then the fibonacci example.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpinski_triangle


--
Kamal Bhatt