[xsl] Re: summing up incrementally

Subject: [xsl] Re: summing up incrementally
From: "Dimitre Novatchev" <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 22:23:49 +0100
Participating in this list requires at least some degree of logical
thinking, which is not the case either with your calculations or with the
way you react to the truth (as demonstrated in your message, quoted below).

As for the professional character of Michael Kay and his charm as a person,
they are so well established that Mike does not need anybody to defend
him...

You also completely missed to say "thank you" (even if only out of
politeness) for Mike's complete explanation of the solution to your problem.

Dimitre Novatchev.
FXSL developer

http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
Resume: http://fxsl.sf.net/DNovatchev/Resume/Res.html


"Paul Tremblay" <phthenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20031219195618.GA1918@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 02:10:57PM -0000, Michael Kay wrote:
> > >
> > > WOOPS!
> > >
> > > Of course, 103 + 102 + 108 = 313!
> > >
> > > Okay, I need to minus the 100:
> > >
> > > 1938 = 03 + 02 = 05
> > >
> > > 1939 = 03 + 02 + 08 = 13
> > >
> >
> > Your maths is not your strong point - have you never heard of compound
> > interest? You actually need the product 1.03 * 1.02 * 1.08.
>
> What a jerky thing to say from an author! My percentage is a bit rusty
> because I don't use it every day. Once my mistake was pointed out, I
> understood exactly what I did wrong.
>
> A few months ago I wrote that Michael Kay had written that the largest
> document you can process is a few megabytes. You wrote back that you
> never said that. I thought I was mistaken, so I looked up the fact in
> your book. I politely pointed this out. Here is the thread:
>
>
> Paul Tremblay:
>
> Michale Kay in his book mentions that documents larger
> than 1 or 2 MB cannot be processed by an XSLT processor, because, as you
> say, the processor loads them into memory.
>
> other poster:
>
> Did he really say that?  That would surprise me, because
> that limit seems rather low.
>
> Michael Kay:
>
> It would surprise me too, but anything is possible.
>
> Paul Tremblay:
>
> I thought I was mistaken. But here is the quote:
>
> "One caveat about data conversion applications: today's XSLT
> processors all rely on holding the data in memory while the
> transformation is taking place. The tree structure in memory
> can be as much as ten times the original data size, so in
> practice, the limit on data size for an XSLT conversion is a
> few megabytes. Even at this size, a complex conversion can be
> quite time-consuming, it depends very much on the processing
> that you actually want to do."(p. 45. Kay, Michael, *XSLT 2nd
> edition. Programmer's Reference*: Arden House, Birmingham,
> Acock's Green, Canada, Wrox Press, 2001.)
>
> Michale Kay:
>
> You may have read "a few" as meaning "1 or 2", but that's not what I
> wrote. I was suggesting the heuristic "if you've got a 64Mb machine
> don't try to process more than about 6Mb of source data."
>
>
> At the time I thought "What an evasive reply!" In the book you wrote
> nothing about a "heuristic," but stated that XSLT could only process
> small documents. You did not state any relationship between
> memory and document size. You simply said a document can be only a "few"
> megabytes in size.
>
> I would be surprised if anyone would interpret a "few" as more than 3. If
> you said "I have a few muffins--do you want one?" And then you opened
> your cabinet to show 10, I think your guest would be surprised. If you
> said that you wrote an application that requires only a few megabytes of
> memory, and that few ended up being 5 or 10, you might have an angry
> user.
>
> But I didn't say anything. I thought, well, Kay is the expert, and it is
> nice of him to spend his time answering questions.
>
> But apparently you have a bit of a problem with human interaction.
>
> By the way, since we are being jerky, let me quote a sentence from the
> passage above: "Even at this size, a complex conversion can be quite
> time-consuming, it depends very much on the processing that you actually
> want to do." You did realize this was a run-on sentence, didn't you?
>
> I am sorry to react so strongly. I guess I expect the stupid insults
> from computer people on emails from time to time. I would not expect it
> from an expert.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> ************************
> *Paul Tremblay         *
> *phthenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx*
> ************************
>
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>
>




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