Re: On side effects

[Vivek Agrawala <vivek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Prescod wrote:
> 
> DSSSL is first and foremost a stylesheet language -- it just has a programming
> language embedded within it. One of the important goals for a stylesheet
> language is usage in interactive applicatons like web browsers and word
> processors. As long as processing something at the top of a document can't
> affect processing at the bottom, then it is possible to render the thing at
> the bottom without even looking at the thing at the top. This allows a user
> to, for instance, jump to the bottom of a 10 MB file without waiting half
> an hour for the first 9.9MB to be processed.

	From what I understand of inherited characteristics, their value
  depends on the flow-parent of a sosofo.  So, is it still true that in
  a DSSSL based interactive application, one could jump to the bottom of
  a 10MB file without waiting for _some_ processing of the first 9.9MB?


-- Vivek Agrawala, Ph.D.
Siemens Corporate Research, Inc.	email: vivek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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