[xsl] Thoughts about the "Asynchronous XSLT"

Subject: [xsl] Thoughts about the "Asynchronous XSLT"
From: "Dimitre Novatchev dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 03:08:43 -0000
First of all, congratulations to the Balisage organizers for organizing
this conference even in the current situation.

I read Dr. Kay's paper "Asynchronous XSLT" from the proceedings of
Balisage-2020:
https://www.balisage.net/Proceedings/vol25/html/Kay01/BalisageVol25-Kay01.html


While the described new feature (promises) is impressive and will be a step
in the right direction, people who have used both promises and reactive
extensions (RxJs in particular, a Javascript implementation of Reactive
Extensions:  http://reactivex.io <http://reactivex.io/languages.html> )
point out certain advantages of using Rx observables over promises:

   - Promises produce only one event; Observables produce a stream of
   events.
   - Promises are not lazy; Observables do not fire even after being
   created, they start emitting the event stream only upon subscription.
   - Working with nested and interdependent promises can be cumbersome and
   unwieldy; Much easier and structured when expressed and handled with
   observables.
   - Promises, once started, cannot be cancelled; Observables were designed
   having cancellation in mind.
   - Shall we mention multicasting ...

Here is a brief video that shows this in running code:
https://egghead.io/lessons/rxjs-rxjs-observables-vs-promises

The reason for my message is that it is still not too late to make an
informed design decision that takes into consideration the established best
approach towards implementing the handling of asynchrony in almost all
major programming languages, and, to have a written evidence that this
problem had at least been raised and (hopefully) discussed.

To quote http://reactivex.io/languages.html , Rx has been implemented in
these languages, platforms and frameworks:
Languages

   - Java: RxJava <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJava>
   - JavaScript: RxJS <https://github.com/ReactiveX/rxjs>
   - C#: Rx.NET <https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.NET>
   - C#(Unity): UniRx <https://github.com/neuecc/UniRx>
   - Scala: RxScala <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxScala>
   - Clojure: RxClojure <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxClojure>
   - C++: RxCpp <https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/RxCpp>
   - Lua: RxLua <https://github.com/bjornbytes/RxLua>
   - Ruby: Rx.rb <https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.rb>
   - Python: RxPY <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxPY>
   - Go: RxGo <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxGo>
   - Groovy: RxGroovy <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxGroovy>
   - JRuby: RxJRuby <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJRuby>
   - Kotlin: RxKotlin <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxKotlin>
   - Swift: RxSwift <https://github.com/kzaher/RxSwift>
   - PHP: RxPHP <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxPHP>
   - Elixir: reaxive <https://github.com/alfert/reaxive>
   - Dart: RxDart <https://github.com/ReactiveX/rxdart>

ReactiveX for platforms and frameworks

   - RxNetty <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxNetty>
   - RxAndroid <https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxAndroid>
   - RxCocoa <https://github.com/kzaher/RxSwift>

.
Why don't we make XSLT part of this large family, where all developers
already know, use and understand the functions and operators, and will be
able with minimum effort to also use the same in XPath/XSLT?

Or is this really challenging because of existing inherent problems in XSLT?

-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
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