[xsl] XPath 2.0 Best Practice: wrap the first node of every path expression within schema-element?

["Costello, Roger L." <costello@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks,

Consider this path expression:

    /Book/Author/LastName

Here I wrap the first node in the path expression within
schema-element:

    /schema-element(Book)/Author/LastName

The benefits of doing this are:

1. At compile-time the processor will validate the Book input element.

2. At compile-time the processor will detect errors in the path
expression:

   2.1 Misspelling errors: these spelling errors are caught:

       /schema-element(Book)/Authr/LastName  (Author is misspelled)

       /schema-element(Book)/Author/LastNam  (LastName is misspelled)

   2.2 Structural errors: suppose the in-scope schema indicates that
the only children of
       Author are FirstName and LastName; this error will be caught:

       /schema-element(Book)/Author/Foo  (Foo is not a valid child of
Author)

Summary: both the input data is checked as well as the path expression
itself.

Are there other benefits?

Are there disadvantages?

Are there reasons why you would not want to do this for every path
expression?

/Roger