Re: [xsl] RE: Is xsl:for-each "syntactic sugar"?

[David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/05/2010 17:42, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> In the book, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman, the authors assert that looping constructs (such as xsl:for-each) are syntactic sugar:

but they didn't add the parenthetical comment
"(such as xsl:for-each)"
that you have added.

Scheme mandates that systems implement tail recursion elimination, and 
define the behaviour of the specific looping constructs in terms of a 
tail recursive call, thus the different syntaxes are, by definition, in 
scheme, equivalent. So one syntax may be considered as syntactic sugar 
for the other.

XSLT doesn't mandate systems implement tail recursion elimination, and 
doesn't mandate any execution order on the items in a for-each, so the 
situation in xslt is not comparable to scheme.

David