Re: Re: [xsl] Vendor extensions for XSLT - higher order functions

["Dimitre Novatchev" <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/23/07, cknell@xxxxxxxxxx <cknell@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> You do yourself a favor when you listen to criticism, especially well-intentioned criticism from a source with experience in the field.


Oh, my statement on the need to learn was not a criticism -- just
stating a fact.


> --
> Charles Knell
> cknell@xxxxxxxxxx - email
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:     Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>
> Sent:     Mon, 23 Jul 2007 06:52:36 -0700
> To:       xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Re: [xsl] Vendor extensions for XSLT - higher order functions
>
> > FXSL, unfortunately, is so powerful that I think many "ordinary" users find
> > it rather daunting. A gentler introduction, using examples from the world of
> > commercial IT systems rather than computer science, would help to sell it to
> > the general public.
>
> There is nothing so powerful in FXSL and it implements some most basic concepts.
>
> Concepts like: fold, map, compose, repeat/iterate   -- form the
> alphabet of programming.
>
> Certainly, if someone has arrived at grade 5 in school and still
> doesn't know the alphabet, this person will find reading even ordinary
> text rather "daunting".
>
> To summarize, FXSL provides a big potential to learn, requires
> learning, and this is even a bigger value than simply the provided
> functionality.
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
> ---------------------------------------
> Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
> ---------------------------------------
> To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
> -------------------------------------
> You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
> you're doing is work or play
>
> On 7/21/07, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > I am curious to know why some XSLT vendors have implemented
> > > one or more XSLT extension functions with their product to
> > > make for the implementation of higher-order functions (HOF) in XSLT.
> >
> > In the case of Saxon, it was needed by an XQuery user, and availability in
> > XSLT was just a spin-off. It's not possible to use the FXSL approach in
> > XQuery because it relies on xsl:apply-templates. In fact, this kind of
> > capability is needed much more in XQuery because even without FXSL, there
> > are many things you can do with xsl:apply-templates to handle dynamic
> > content that have no simple solution in XQuery.
> >
> > In fact, in business applications I far more often see the need for
> > saxon:evaluate() (in both XSLT and XQuery) where expressions are constructed
> > at run-time from strings. But saxon:evaluate() is easy to understand, and it
> > often gets used to solve problems where compile-time higher-order functions
> > would be a cleaner and more efficient solution.
> >
> > FXSL, unfortunately, is so powerful that I think many "ordinary" users find
> > it rather daunting. A gentler introduction, using examples from the world of
> > commercial IT systems rather than computer science, would help to sell it to
> > the general public.
> >
> > Michael Kay
> > http://www.saxonica.com/


--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
---------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
-------------------------------------
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play