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Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns

• To: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>
• Subject: Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
• From: Eric van der Vlist <vdv@d...>
• Date: 01 Oct 2002 17:30:27 +0200
• Cc: xml-dev@l..., Dare Obasanjo <dareo@m...>
• In-reply-to: <16432746516.20021001161836@j...>
• References: <CNEHJIJMDHDIGIPHFEBLOEIJCLAA.james.fuller@o...><46427684958.20021001145415@j...><1033481088.3669.880.camel@ibook><168429467091.20021001152357@j...><1033483519.5744.35.camel@ibook> <16432746516.20021001161836@j...>

On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 17:18, Jeni Tennison wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> [Dare, question for you at the bottom...]
> 
> >> Which of the requirements don't you agree with? Do you have
> >> requirements that aren't or can't be met using extensions to XPath
> >> 1.0 (e.g. for conditional expressions in XPath)?
> >
> > Basically the requirement I don't agree with is that it needs to be
> > a basis for XQuery and become strongly typed.
> 
> OK. I agree about the strong typing. I'm not sure about the XQuery
> side, because I think it makes sense for both XQuery and XSLT to use
> the same basic data model and the same syntax for e.g. location paths.
> But I do agree that the overlap between XPath-for-XSLT and
> XPath-for-XQuery could and should be substantially less (I had an
> analogy of XPath 2.0 and a stomach-bursting Alien -- killing its
> "host" language).
> 
> The kind of model I favour is one where XPath is broken down into
> modules that can be combined when XPath is used in XQuery, XSLT, W3C
> XML Schema, XForms, XPointer, user-defined languages and so on. The
> most basic module would support only the basic axes, for example;
> other modules would build on top of it to add the support required for
> the other languages' uses of XPath.

This seems like such a good idea that I am surprized it hasn't been
unanimously accepted yet :-) ...

In an ideal world, XPath 1.0 could be one of these modules!

In a way this is already what's happening: specifications define their
own sub or super set of XPath. It would be a mean to formalize what's
happening in real life.

It would also be a challenging exercise to build static typing as a
module: in general purpose programming languages this is a rather
fundamental design decision!
 
> (Coo, don't *I* feel important!) I have no idea; I've only been an
> invited expert for a few days. We should ask Dare.

Sure, you are the eye of all the independent consultants within this W3C
WG!

Thanks for sharing all this with us.

Eric
-- 
Rendez-vous a Paris (seminaire 01 Informatique).
                       http://www.01net.com/rubrique?rub=2813&cpn=lib_86
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric van der Vlist       http://xmlfr.org            http://dyomedea.com
(W3C) XML Schema ISBN:0-596-00252-1 http://oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema
------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>

• References:
  • RE: limits of the generic
    • From: "James Fuller" <james.fuller@o...>
  • XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>
  • Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Eric van der Vlist <vdv@d...>
  • Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>
  • Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Eric van der Vlist <vdv@d...>
  • Re: XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns
    • From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>

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