Re: [xsl] Does the count() function require access to the whole subtree?

Subject: Re: [xsl] Does the count() function require access to the whole subtree?
From: Michael Sokolov <msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:17:51 -0500
Wendell - a very thoughtful response. I think there is an analogue to the bike shed in design parlance -- I'm scouring the web for a reference and failing, but the idea is an ugly black chair that the designer puts into a room in order to give the client something to complain about that is easy to change, distracting them from attempting to make any deeper modifications while satisfying the innate need to put a stamp on the design. Every spec needs a few, I think.

cheers

Mike

On 01/15/2014 10:56 AM, Wendell Piez wrote:
Hi,

Given that, as Mike Kay points out, the spec does not deploy "overlap"
as a formally defined technical term, then surely the spec can write
around this in the nine places where the term is now used. The simple
fact that, in more than one of those places, "overlap" is already
glossed so that we understand it doesn't really mean "overlap" but
something else, suggests that such rewriting should make for an
improvement.

I accept Mike Sokolov's argument for why "overlap" might be acceptable
in principle. Yes, part of what a specification does is provide a
constraining context for the semantics of the terminology deployed in
it. But I think in this case it stretches so far it breaks. Dimitre is
correct about "overlap" here, and "nesting" (for example) is much
better. (Nor is it partisans, such as myself, of approaches to markup
that permit actual overlap that I am worried about. If the term
becomes "overlap" I think we will be never be done explaining to
newbies that even when branches "overlap" they never really overlap in
any more normal sense.)

But the best new term I've learned in this thread has to be "bicycle shed".

Cheers, Wendell
Wendell Piez | http://www.wendellpiez.com
XML | XSLT | electronic publishing
Eat Your Vegetables
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On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 12:28 AM, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm perfectly comfortable with a replacement such as "... that no title element will ever contain another
I think this is good.


-- Cheers, Dimitre Novatchev --------------------------------------- Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence. --------------------------------------- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk ------------------------------------- Never fight an inanimate object ------------------------------------- To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all ------------------------------------ Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. ------------------------------------- You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play ------------------------------------- To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep. ------------------------------------- Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. ------------------------------------- Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they write all patents, too? :) ------------------------------------- I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

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