Re: [xsl] XSLT and XML in the same document

["M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 05:11:06 -0600, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@xxxxxx>  
wrote:

> Microsoft: please give us exslt:node-set in IE. Please.

An interesting point in time to be asking MSFT for "favors."  via a  
comment from Mike Champion (formerly of MSFT XML Team, now a part of the  
WS-* team; He's the one that lobbied for and obtained support for XSLT  
2.0, so it's fair to assume that his advice on how to get MSFT's attention  
in this space is quite sound)

@http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/05/xml_silverlight_and.html#comment-590145

"I think Aaron is asking about what *subset* of the .NET XML features  
should be ported to the Silverlight environment :-)

But to get their attention for whatever subset or superset features you  
think is appropriate, it would be best to be more explicit about the types  
of applications you would build for the Silverlight platform and why some  
specific XML feature would be necessary to make it work well."

My own wish-list is in the body of the same linked post from above, and  
while full support for XSLT 2.0 inside of Silverlight would be *GREAT*, I  
don't think it's something we should get our hopes up too high about, as  
small and fast is of primary concern.  Instead, I believe that if the  
community were to put their heads together and come up with a reasoanable  
subset of EXSLT functions (potentially using the support provided by Fx  
3.0 as a foundation to begin working from?), we could probably get the  
right folks attention at MSFT to at very least consider providing support.

In the mean time, something to consider: The Mono project provides an  
implementation of System.Xml.Xsl licensed under the MIT license.  The MSFT  
XML MVP's have support for EXSLT inside of their BSD-licensed Mvp.Xml  
library.  Silverlight provides support for XmlReader and XmlWriter, and  
Silverlight itself is a full fledged CLR, or in other words, their is full  
support for CIL, which means their is full support for the C#, VB.NET, and  
any other CLR compliant language (F# is the latest entry I have seen in  
the "hey, look what Silverlight can do" language support-fest.)  And to  
put the cherry on top of all of this, Silverlight is supported on not just  
IE, but on Firefox (Windows, Mac) and (soon) Opera (Windows, Mac), with  
the Mono project folks developing support as part of their Moonlight  
project[1] which is suggested will be complete by the end of this year.

In short: An opportunity now exists to both get MSFT's attention and have  
a reasonable chance of gaining at least some level of support for EXSLT  
inside of Silverlight and as such have that same support provided  
cross-browser/cross-platform, as well as taking the bull by the horns and  
building that support by using existing code that already provides *FULL*  
support for XSLT 1.0/EXSLT, or in other words, developing support  
ourselves that could then be used inside of any Silverlight-based project  
would be pretty straight forward.  Gaining direct support would obviously  
be quite a bit better, but creating a community-based project would at  
very least ensure that support is available, while at the same time act as  
a good way to flesh out what portions of the EXSLT spec make sense inside  
of the browser space and which of those do not.

I've started a project on CodePlex called SilverLiteXSLT  
(http://www.codeplex.com/silverlitexslt < Haven't published it yet, so you  
probably won't see anything if you visit this link.) Please contact me  
off-list if you have interest in being a part of this.

NOTE: The Atomictalk project is specifically focused at providing the  
ability to build out cross-breed web applications, using pre-defined  
modules in XHTML, Silverlight, Flash, etc... so I will be using this is as  
the foundation for SilverLiteXSLT in regards to finding the most practical  
feature-set using a hands-on, pragramatic approach.  Will be OOF for the  
rest of the morning, but when I come back I plan to spend some time  
finishing out getting this project setup and the code from the various  
projects checked-in to begin the "mashup" process.  < This is going to be  
fun! :D  Anyone want to join me?  Let me know :)


[1] http://mono-project.com/Moonlight

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354 |  
http://dev.aol.com/blog/3155