RE: [xsl] The output of evaluating an XSLT transform is the same regardless of the order in which output elements are evaluated. Right?

["Costello, Roger L." <costello@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ken Holman wrote:

> I'm curious:  why is the "how" important?  I work with these
> technologies every day and I don't care *how* the processor fulfills
> the spec, as long as the spec is fulfilled.  A stylesheet writer's
> responsibility is to understand how the specification works.

Here are a couple answers:

1. I have a "gut feeling" that if I understand _why_ an XSLT document can be
executed in parallel then it will help me write better XSLT documents.

2. I am trying to shift from an imperative mindset to a declarative mindset. I
have always written XSLT in terms of sequential, step-by-step processing. The
declarative mindset invites me to break out of that way of thinking, into a
more parallel mode of thinking. I want to stop doing FORTRAN in XSLT.
Understanding how things can be done in parallel will help me ... I think.

/Roger