Re: [xsl] Books on XSLT/XPATH

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

On 2/22/07, Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

At 12:08 PM 2/17/2007, Michael Kay wrote:
> > I'm in the very early stages of discussion with Wiley about doing a  
> > revised
> > edition of the books to fix the few areas where the final specs have
> > diverged. Don't hold your breath.

> Mike, if the word went out that a new updated and corrected edition,
> with better indexes, page headers and navigation aids, were due out
> Any Day Now (and so one might not want to buy the old one), do you
> suppose this might motivate the publisher to accelerate its production?

With MSFT's recent repentance process and re-conversion to the one true  
XML transformation language it would seem to me that a reformatted and  
corrected edition of both titles will find an explosion of interest,  
especially if, for example, that new edition was released in about a years  
time and contained extended information in regards to Saxon's .NET API,  
extension functions, and of course, if dreams *REALLY CAN* come true, the  
result of any collaborative work between Saxonica and MSFT, similar to  
than in which Andrew pointed out a while back: A plug-and-play XML  
Transformation* interface similar to that in which you collaboratively  
designed/develop for Java.

NOTE: If Wiley/WROX can't see the obviousness potential of the XSLT 2.0,  
XPath 2.0, and (potentially) XQuery (would make, in my opinion, for a  
*GREAT* companion title to the overall series) book market in a years  
time**, then maybe another publisher would be interested in purchasing the  
rights?  Don't know, but I most certainly believe that I'm not alone in my  
belief that the X2X2X market, which before the release of the  
specification was an obvious risk, has a much more clear and reliable path  
to profitability than was the case before the release of the final  
recommendation, and most certainly now that MSFT is back in the game.

> Of course I'm kidding,

And of course, I'm not. ;-)

* And Query now that XQuery is complete; < would certainly be one way of  
MSFT "providing" an XQuery implementation for standalone XML docs < seems  
to have worked well for the Java camp who's first "native" XSLT  
implementation was introduced in the form of Apache's Xalan code base in  
Java 1.5 Tiger from a few years back.

** Which, I'm guessing, we will have seen at least one if not more CTP  
releases of MSFT's XSLT 2.0 implementation, and if not, then hold off a  
little longer until we have, as what we have between yours and Jenny's  
title is sufficient until such time as the XSLT 2.0 landscape (e.g. an  
official MSFT Saxon.Api.Clone() (System.Xml.Xsl.Extension similar to that  
of LINQ's System.Xml.XLinq.Extension?***) as well as (potentially) an  
MSXML refresh) has sufficiently change to warrant a refresh.

*** see:  
http://dev.extensibleforge.net/browser/trunk/VendorExtensions/Microsoft/LINQ/LINQ.Extension.XdmNode/XdmNode.cs

and in particular

http://dev.extensibleforge.net/browser/trunk/VendorExtensions/Microsoft/LINQ/LINQ.Extension.XdmNode/XdmNode.cs#L7

which was a first crack attempt from a while back to extend a sample  
published by Mike Champion,
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikechampion/archive/2006/09/10/748408.aspx****

using annotations as a form of pseudo-conversion between between XdmNode  
and XElement.

**** which I copied over and made availabale in a more code-reading  
friendly format @  
http://dev.extensibleforge.net/browser/trunk/VendorExtensions/Microsoft/LINQ/Extension.LineInfo/LINQ.Extension.LineInfo/LineNumbers.cs

--
/M:D

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