Subject: RE: [xsl] RDDL as a delivery vehicle for XSLT extensions? From: Peter Flynn <peter@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 09:07:47 +2400 |
At Thursday, 1 March 2001, Mike wrote: >> I have a question. What is the primary reason for xsl:script? > >The primary reason is to allow users to write extension functions that are >portable between one XSLT processor and another, as opposed to the current >situation where extensions written for Saxon don't work with Xalan. I still >find it hard to understand why this should be thought such an undesirable >objective. It's not. But it's not difficult to foresee the situation where powerful interests encourage and recommend the technique of writing everything as a script in their preferred language, leading to "XSLT" files which are half a meg of script and five lines of XSLT. We've already seen it with HTML, where the "solution" to every need is to write a script, even when the requirement can often be met more portably using markup, because it's "too difficult" to learn or write HTML, and "everyone uses IE anyway". I am already bombarded with questions (from the Q&A form in the XML FAQ) along the lines of "where do I put my JavaScript or VBscript in an XML file?" [new FAQ out soon, BTW], and it surely cannot be long before one of the browser makers adds support for "Dynamic XML" by recognising scriptlets in attribute values or elsewhere (xhtml:script, perhaps) to permit the render-time transclusion of element content or whole elements so that the author "doesn't have to bother with XSL[T]". It's arguable that this is really a management issue, but my caution is simply to avoid making the descent to this Avernus so easy. I don't have a simple solution, and xsl:script may ultimately be the way to go, but making it *appear* that the answer to all problems is "who cares, you can always write a script" is at this stage unwise. Mike is perfectly correct that portable scripted extension functions are desirable. The problem is to guarantee portability and ensure that scripts *are* extensions, not just ways of duplicating existing XSL functionality. ///Peter ///Peter XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
[xsl] Comment about XSLT Complier?, Derek Ngok | Thread | Re: [xsl] RDDL as a delivery vehicl, Joe English |
Re: [xsl] Can I match multiple crit, Jeni Tennison | Date | Re: [xsl] Re: FXPath - A comment on, Jeni Tennison |
Month |