"Higher Order Functions for XQuery" -- static context

  Hi,

  I guess this is a good place to discuss John's proposal for
"Higher
Order Functions for XQuery."  Sorry if it is not.

  In the section "1.2
Inline Functions", the fifth paragraph is
<http://snelson.org.uk/~jpcs/higher-order-functions.html#inline-func>:
The static context for the function body is inherited from
    the location of
the inline function expression, with the
    exception of the static type of
the focus (context item,
    context position, and context size) which is
undefined.

  I am not sure to understand what does "the static type of the
focus" mean.  The focus is a component of the dynamic context,
and I am not
sure "type" is used here as in the rest of the RECs.

  BTW, is this
restriction really relevant?  A user can anyway
reference those values by
using intermediary variables:

    let $i := position()
      return
function() { $i }

and the processor would be able to detect whether the
function
body does use any component of the focus, to see if it has to
save
those as well or not.

  I guess I missed the point behind this choice.  Any
idea?

  Regards,

-- 
Florent Georges
http://www.fgeorges.org/