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Re: SGML complexity

• From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:17:52 -0400

Michael Kay wrote:

> Unfortunately, I think it also kneecapped the free software market to some
> extent. It's noticeable how few of the XSLT 1.0 vendors are producing a
> version 2.0 product, and in most cases I think the problem is that it's
> difficult to produce a business case for developing free software.

I think it has at least something to do with whether 2.0 is actually 
useful. Certainly in Jaxen (which only does XPath, not even full XSLT) 
nobody working on the project sees what they'd gain by releasing a 2.0 
version. The data model is a cleaner, and they're quite a few extra 
functions; but mostly 1.0 does everything we need it to do.

While there's certainly a lot of value in 2.0, there are also a number 
of questionable items. The bar for fully implementing it is just way too 
high to interest a lot of folks. Had 1.1 been pushed out the door first, 
I think essentially all active implementations would have been upgraded. 
Had 2.0 followed with an improved data model, but without all the schema 
baggage and perhaps with a somewhat smaller function library, I think 
most vendors would have made the jump again. However there's just so 
much in XSLT 2 that the sheer size of the project is daunting.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@m...
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/

• References:
  • RE: SGML complexity (was: RE: Re: Recognizing...)
    • From: Michael Kay