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Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath

• From: Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@gmail.com>
• To: David Lee <dlee@calldei.com>
• Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 09:53:37 -0700

XPath is by design intended to be a "hosted" language.

The problem exposed in this thread is not XPath problem at all -- it
is the problem of not being in control of the hosting process.

In this particular case the host is an XML Schema processor, so the
problem is in this particular implementation of XML Schema.

-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
---------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
-------------------------------------
Never fight an inanimate object
-------------------------------------
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play
-------------------------------------
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-------------------------------------
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.


On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 9:14 AM, David Lee <dlee@calldei.com> wrote:
> IMHO ...
>
> I think XPath "suffers" in ways XQuery and XSLT do not because it is more
> reliant on the surrounding infrastructure.
>
> And it *seems* that it was intended to be part of a bigger ecosystem, not a
> standalone thing.
> Otherwise things like setting the namespace bindings would be part of the
> xpath language , not required to be set by the container environment.
>
> Hence XPath is *inherently* dependent on the peculiarities of the context in
> which its used.
> This could be a feature or a bug depending on your point of view.
>
> Feature:
>        Imagine how big XPath expressions (which are stateless) would be if
> you had to do all the namespace bindings in every one.
> Bug:
>        You cant write a "portable" XPath statement without the
> environmental specific settings.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Lee
> dlee@calldei.com
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@saxonica.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 11:54 AM
> To: stephengreenubl@gmail.com
> Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re:  Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
>
>
> On 09/05/2011 16:49, Stephen D Green wrote:
>> I think we tend to hope that XPath expressions can be
>> written such that they are immune from such implementation
>> specifics
>
> Yes, indeed, but there's no way to prevent tools vendors from adding
> their own usability layer around the base language, or improving these
> layers from one release to the next.
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>
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• References:
  • Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>
  • Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
  • Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>
  • Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>
  • Re: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
  • RE: Concerned about the increasing reliance on XPath
    • From: "David Lee" <dlee@calldei.com>