> I think most of us have control of our target environments, so
> portability comes last compared to functionality, performance and
> maintainability.  Having to convert RTF's to a node-set is a pain, the
> difference between the two is only theoretical, and the sooner they're
> forgotten about the better :)  

Except that RTF can be generated much more efficiently than node-set;
and some implementations fell into a trap somewhere around this
issue while implementing extension node-set call -- making it too
inefficient. Not having to explicitely convert RTF to a node-set
can lead to either inefficient code or to complex non-local optimizations
in the processor. 

David Tolpin
http://davidashen.net/

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