Subject: RE: [xsl] Is there a reason for not using XSLT 2.0 as a default From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 09:57:13 -0000 |
> In fact one of the primary reasons Microsoft has held back from > providing direct support for the XSLT 2.0 spec is based on the last > second 'split' of the 1.0 spec into the XSL (FO) and XSLT > specifications causing an incompatible processor to be propogated and > a support nightmare to be invoked. Just to add to DC's reply. It's a mistake to imagine that Microsoft's WD-xsl processor was a faithful and accurate implementation of a draft W3C specification. The WD-xsl language actually bears no more relationship to the Dec 1998 draft of the language than it does to the final Dec 1999 spec. This is partly because the Dec 1998 draft is peppered with descriptions of open issues: anyone implementing it had to make their own decisions on how to resolve these. It's quite clear to anyone reading that draft that it was in a very unfinished state. Many features of WD-xsl bear no resemblence to anything in any W3C draft: you can search in vain for operators such as $and$ or for the functions that access the context stack. These features were added by Microsoft because the W3C draft was incomplete. To suggest that W3C had a complete specification, that Microsoft implemented it in good faith, and that W3C then changed it at the last minute, is therefore a complete distortion. I don't know what motivated Microsoft to ship product at the time they did, but it was obvious to any observer at the time that they were basing their product very loosely on a specification that was incomplete and still changing. It was evident to me as an outsider, and would have been even more evident to someone with access to the WG minutes, which I have since seen. The WG was making radical changes at every single meeting, often without a written proposal on the table, and Microsoft were members so they would have known that. Michael Kay http://www.saxonica.com/
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
Re: [xsl] Is there a reason for not, M. David Peterson | Thread | Re: [xsl] Is there a reason for not, M. David Peterson |
RE: [xsl] Is there a reason for not, Michael Kay | Date | Re: [xsl] Is there a reason for not, M. David Peterson |
Month |