Re: [xsl] [exsl] EXSLT 1.0 - Common, Sets and Math

Subject: Re: [xsl] [exsl] EXSLT 1.0 - Common, Sets and Math
From: David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 19:04:27 GMT

> Mike collaborating with the evil empire?!? Is it only you that remains
> unsullied by connections with the dark side? ;)

Me? I've been using W2K since before Christmas (but don't tell anyone:-)
So long as you have an X server running to a unix machine, and emacs and
tex installed, it's not so bad, really:-)

> [This conjured a question: What is it that's currently stopping an
> implementer from using another implementer's extension
> element/function?

Nothing, but two things wrong with this approach,

Firstly political it's much more credible that a commercial implementor
will agree to make functions available in a neutral namespace than to
make them available in the namespace of a competitor.

Secondly, even if (say) MSXSL did make lots of saxon functions available
in the saxon namespace, xalan functions available in the xalan namespace
etc, the user then has to declare any number of namespaces just
essentially to record who initially thought of implementing each
function. Much better to stick them all in your namespace so users just
have to think of you (isn't that a nice thought:-)

> But what should happen if Miss Innovator comes along later and says
> 'Hey, that foobangwhizz function should really take three arguments,
> like this'? It would be a real pain if the foobangwhizz that takes
> three arguments has to be called foobangwhizz-3args or something.

why would that be so bad? The number of strings matching the QName
production that are no longer than "foobangwhizz-3args" is "quite large"
So there's plenty of scope for thinking up good new names.

> So I think that there should be some kind of really minimal review
> period (like a week or two)

If you turn round all requests in under two weeks you will attain
sainthood as well as omniscience, so I don't think a delay of that order
of magnitude is any delay at all. I don't think it will do any good
though, in the real world it'll be 6 months not 6 weeks before
implementor B gets round to thinking about implementing recent additions
to the common namespace, and notices that things could have been
different.

David

_____________________________________________________________________
This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered
through the MessageLabs Virus Control Centre. For further information visit
http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


Current Thread