RE: Date Difference

> From: Michael Kay
> > 
> > A)
> > Is there a reason the operators described within the op: 
> > namespace in the CR are not available?  I began with 
> statements like:
> > 
> > op:subtract-dates($earlier, $later)
> 
> It might be better to ask, is there any reason that the 
> operators of the
> language are specified by reference to a notional function 
> library that
> exists only for the purpose of specifying operators? The 
> answer is that
> someone thought that would be an elegant way of doing it. Readers may
> disagree.

Once I figured it out, I appreciated it as an admirable example of getting
maximal specificity out of natural language.  Only it needs highlighting
somehow.  The first clue that all is not as it seems is the lack of a
explicit URI for the op: namespace; then the two sentence clarification
occurs just at the end of 

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#namespace-prefixes


> "moot" in the English sense (controversial, debatable) or the 
> American sense
> (irrelevant)? (Sorry, Tommie, this is an international list 
> and we can't
> make assumptions).

Here, the American sense, but then both denotations are available on this
side of the briny, the British sense merely considered obsolete usage.  And
I think it verbs as "offer for discussion."

> Simpler still is to use format-number().


Thanks very much for all your suggestions here and under the thread:
stylesheet functions or named templates.  Just the guidance I was looking
for.


Mike