Re: [xsl] XSLT 1.1 comments

Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT 1.1 comments
From: James Clark <jjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:21:27 +0700
Uche Ogbuji wrote:

> Why can't processor implementors
> band together to sort it out?

> Obvious choice is to form an OASIS TC

Why isn't the XSL WG an appropriate forum for processor implementors to
band together to sort it out?  The W3C is an industrial consortium where
vendors band together to agree on things (with some controls to ensure
that the interests of the wider Web community are taken into
consideration).  In this respect it does not seem to me to be any
different from OASIS.

Would you be satisfied if language bindings in Appendix C moved into a
separate W3C spec (with it's own namespace URI) and the syntax for the
language attribute on xsl:script changed from

  language = "ecmascript" | "javascript" | "java" | qname-but-not-ncname

into simply

  language = qname-but-not-ncname

?  If there were no administrative overhead in progressing W3C specs, I
think I would favor that approach.

> If people need to band together to standardize exceptions, they can 
> do so without xsl:script.

Yes, they could, but xsl:script makes it easier. The job of xsl:script
is simply to provide a way to use a namespace URI to determine:

1. The code to be called by an extension function
2. How to call that code (ie the language-binding)

This is a job that is completely language independendent and it is
something that has to be done by any implementation of XSLT extension
functions.  In my view this makes the XSLT spec the right place to
specify xsl:script.  With xsl:script, all that is required for
standardizing extensions is to specify the language binding like
Appendix C does; it is not necessary to invent any XML syntax to do the
job that xsl:script is doing.

James



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