> I think that's a better situation than we have now...

actually so do I, (hence my first answer, which didn't try to give a
rational explanation) but I suspect that the reasoning was more along
the lines of the second answer.

// was a primitive or at least its expansion wasn't formally defined) in
December 1998

    A // can be used instead of / to select from descendants instead of from
    children.


by April 1999 it had become 


    // is short for /from-descendants-or-self(node())/

which is essentially (modulo syntax changes) the definition it ended up
with.


I couldn't immediately spot anything in the working group mail archive
between those dates that showed when the change happened (not that I
could tell you if I had found it:-)


David

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