Re: [xsl] distinguish whether variable holds string or node set

[Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Well, then I'd rather stick to the "adopted standard".  (Why is XSLT 2
> so badly supported?)
>    


Poor choice of words there. No-one supports XSLT 2.0 badly; they either 
support it well, or not at all.

If you mean, why have so few people implemented XSLT 2.0, then I think 
you have to ask the question "Why has company|person X not implemented 
XSLT 2.0" for a number of values of X, and then see if there is any 
commonality in the answers.

For the browser vendors, I think the answer is that none of them is 
particularly interested in making the first move. You don't get 
competitive advantage in the browser space by being the first to support 
new standards. There's a built-in inertia here that's a great drag on 
the industry.

For Microsoft, the answer is that they lost interest in XSLT, largely 
because they became over-enthusiastic about their own proprietary 
languages, and because of various power shifts between the various 
internal groups interested in XML technology. But that's me trying to 
read the tea-leaves: only Microsoft can give you the inside story, and I 
doubt they ever will.

For a lot of the people who produced open-source XSLT 1.0 engines, I 
think you'll find that they did the 1.0 version for fun, or in a vague 
hope that they might find some unspecified revenue stream as a spin-off, 
perhaps having greatly underestimated the size of the task; and having 
done it, with a lot of hard work, a lot of fun, a lot of lost week-ends, 
and no revenue, they weren't inclined to start all over again.

But five XSLT 2.0 engines have been shipped, or five-and-a-half if you 
count Oracle, and I know of four more that are under development; if we 
get to the point where there are nine separately-developed 
implementations then we will have achieved far more than most 
programming language standards. And although some users are still 
sticking to XSLT 1.0 because that's the only thing supported in their 
favourite environment, a great many more have made the shift and are 
very pleased with the productivity benefits that it brings.

Michael Kay
Saxonica