Re: [xsl] Chrome/blink developers discussing removing XSLT support

["Tony Graham" <tgraham@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, April 25, 2013 9:04 pm, Eric J. Bowman wrote:
> Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
>>
>> Alas, I am not one of the browser vendors... but these people probably
>> can make logical conclusions?
>
> Yes, they've logically concluded that they can dictate which
> technologies are "inappropriate" for use in browsers.  Can't imagine
> this has anything to do with _improving_ XSLT performance, or updating
> to 2.0 / Saxon CE, so much as their obvious agenda to kill XML on the
> Web.

"Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with
confidence" [1]

However, even yesterday, the thread at
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/KZ0eaL-3vQY
was about measuring usage, not arbitrarily dropping XSLT, and that was
reiterated there after several posts in support of XSLT.

Several of the posts on that thread have pointed out what we could
consider to be obvious: poor support for XSLT in browsers has led to poor
usage of XSLT in browsers.  But because of that poor support, even a
well-intentioned usage statistics gathering will, I fear, be like a train
company considering going from an hourly service to a half-hourly that
then drops the idea after its survey shows people only gather at the train
station at hourly intervals.

Collectively, here, we mostly think it's a no-brainer to use XSLT in the
browser, and even XSLT 2.0 in the browser with Saxon-CE, though many would
not have heard of blink until yesterday, but collectively, on the blink
list, they'd mostly think you'd have no brains if you use XSLT in the
browser, and many would not have heard of Saxon-CE until yesterday. 
There's obviously more than a little distance between those two positions,
but how would you positively influence them towards our position?

Regards,


Tony Graham                                   tgraham@xxxxxxxxxx
Consultant                                 http://www.mentea.net
Mentea       13 Kelly's Bay Beach, Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland
 --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
    XML, XSL-FO and XSLT consulting, training and programming


[1] http://www.netlingo.com/word/murphys-laws-on-technology.php
    and various other places.  I originally saw it on a poster
    of the same name, but most sites that quote all the maxims
    from the poster neglect to mention the original.