RE: Push Processing

> Also, is there any real advantage to specifying 
> as="element()" other then readability/documentation?  You've 
> recently discussed the advantages of doing this for 
> non-element data types (e.g. numeric functions).  Are there 
> similar advantages for element()?
> 

It's always a good idea to declare your parameter type.

(a) readability/documentation is a worthwhile end in itself

(b) if your code is wrong, you will typically get error messages that are
close to the point of failure (rather than just wrong or blank output)

(c) it gives the compiler extra information to work with, which can
sometimes make a big difference to the optimizability of the code.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/