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RE: The Cathedral and the Bizarre (was: do you use pi's?)

Subject: RE: The Cathedral and the Bizarre (was: do you use pi's?)
From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 11:59:40 -0400
why do we use pi
Hi Guy,

We have first to agree on a mechanism for MIME filters. We are documenting a
XPCOM interface for this. I guess we will have something working after M5 or
after the 5.0 release. Actually, we have code freeze and now its time for
bug resolution, so its not time to change anything. But after the release
we'll implement and document the MIME filter concept for the HTTP protocol
handler. Mozilla development process is not as fast as we would it be, but
we now progressing faster than before. The problem is that it is still a
Netscape owned project and there is no documentation. the learning curve for
a newcomer is big. You have to learn form source code. However, the new
version is an enormous improvement on the last. Everything is now formatted
as modules. There is a binary signature convention so that a module can talk
to an other one on the same platform. You could easily create a COM/XPCOM
component with actual tools with minor modifications. If we can get people
to document this, developers will discover some pearls there. The layout
engine is getting stable from day to day. There work to do on the next
version:
a) plug and play for XPCOM parsers. A parser has access to the DOM and do
the translation from a format to the DOM. Quite powerful. Potentially you
can create a parser for the language of your choice and not necessarily XML
or HTML. Or implement DSL (Domain specific language) extension to existing
languages like for instance XLL , Hytime or XPointer.
b) NetLib MIME filters that could be liked together in a transformation
chain. For example, a filter could decompress a document received form a
HTTP 1.1 server (with compression ON), an other one could de-encrypt, an
other one could transform the document with a style sheet and finally the
result either a) parsed and displayed, b) is a DOM tree created by the style
engine and then given to the layout manager for display.

Exiting mechanisms, What now needed is that the development community become
aware of these good things.

So, to now answer directly to your question. Do not expect something working
for XSL, DSSSL or XScripts before this fall. I we are lucky and get ahead of
schedule this could be before, but I got burned more than one time with
slipping schedules in this project :-))). But the actual code freeze do
includes CSS and XML processing. However (just to put pizzaz on the actual
thread on validation) the parser is a non validating XML parser. Guys from
DocZilla created their own version with their SGML/XML parser. This is a
validating parser (obviously because it is a SGML parser that can also parse
XML). This could have been a solution but we want to sit the interfaces in
the specs so that anybody could add new features and get a high probability
to have this stuff work. This inlcudes being able to replace the parser. So,
if you don't laike the XML or the HTML parser, you can replace it with your
own. Validation "is a must" supporters will then be able to replace the
provided HTML/XML parsers with their own parser as long as it is XPCOM
compliant and fulfill the interface contract.

But stay tuned, we'll have something new very soon. A procedural event base
script language named XScripts. You'll be able to transform a SGML/XML
document into whatever you want (not restricted to XML). Here is a sample

<XStyles>

<element match="/">
  output"<HTML>"
  process-children()
  output"</HTML>"
</element>

<element match="MyMarkup">
  output "<BODY>"
  output "<P> This text includes" & (Sheet * 2) & "pages<P>"
  output value-of_select("subMarkup")
</element>

</XStyles>

The body of each rule could be in a) javaScript, b) VBSCript, c) PERLSCript,
d) PythonScript. So its a mix of rule based and procedural programming. This
will work with Mozilla and IE and could be attached to a XML/SGML document
as a style sheet or use to process documents in batch. Its simple, as you
see, the rules are fired when a match is encountered. We are studying if XQL
queries could be used for the match so that these two universe could be
merged (it makes sense that they should). We also, learned from XSL and
DSSSL and kept several concept from both languages but adapted this to
procedural languages. We kept the concept of rule. Actually, the style
document is a SGML document. if someone want that the style script is a
"kosher" XML document then a rule as to be enclosed with the CDATA[....]
construct. Note that all actul script constructs, numerical and string
processing can work. Same thing for object creation and usage. You can for
instance create a data base object and use it in a rule. It is simply
versatile. Now we try to minimize the Script to Grove/DOM interface like
people in Perl-XML experimented. We also learned a lot from their
experimentation with expat-XML interfacing.

The concept of style router is making progress and I'll publish something on
this very soon. Again, we are learning a lot from the work we did on the
SGML/XML kit that routes to XSL, CSS and DSSSL style sheets. By the way,
we'll post a new version based on a different module packaging. We now know
more about the pros and cons of MIME filters and document handlers.

I'll keep you informed Guy if you want to make some tests with XScripts.
Your pragmatic mind and feedbacks are more than precious.

Regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
Guy_Murphy@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 10:07 AM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: The Cathedral and the Bizarre (was: do you use pi's?)


Hi Martin.

When do you envisage having something that people can play with?

Cheers
     Guy.





xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 04/07/99 04:30:09 PM

To:   xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc:    (bcc: Guy Murphy/UK/MAID)
Subject:  RE: The Cathedral and the Bizarre (was: do you use pi's?)




Hi Guy,
We are working on that. There is actually two solution envisioned:
a) a MIME filter is inserted in the protocol handler (similar architecture
to IE 5 but this time, not with an unknown interface :-)
b) a DOM to DOM transformation. However this last process requires XSL
formatting object to be implemented.
We are looking at both solutions, but the first one is actually the easiest
one.
regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com
[SNIP]



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