Pedagogy of Objects

David,

I do admire you pedagogical style. It always, for me, generates
interesting takes. For example:

> Easiest is first just sort the original and save the srted list in a
> variable (which is a result tree fragment)

There a difference between a "result tree fragment" and a "node
set". But isn't saving a selected & sorted list of nodes saving a node
set?

BTW, has any one worked up a training resource which shows which
type of XSLT objects can be transformed into other types of XSLT objects?
E.g. neither a Boolean nor a Number nor a String nor a Result Tree
Fragment can be converted into a Node Set but a Node Set can be converted
into you guessed it....

Of course the Mulberry Technologies XSLT and XPath Quick Reference is
wonderful in also listing the XPath Core Function Library along with the
Object types (with convenient references to the relevant sections of the
recommendation). 

Does anyone apply a functional approach [An invitation to students to
explore a this-makes-that mindset] to XSLT teaching? Most of the materials
I have seen begin and concentrate on matching and selecting. It is an
approach that seems to also distinguish certain types of responses and
questions appearing on the list. 



-- 
Francois Lachance
Post-doctoral Fellow
projet HYPERLISTES project
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hyplist/


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