Re: [exsl] EXSLT 1.0 - Common, Sets and Math

David C. wrote:
> As for what functions to stick in exslt I'd have a policy of if in
> doubt add it. So in particular I'd probably start by suggesting all
> the saxon ones. (Thus including saxon:function) This just gives a
> namespace that isn't saxon specific that means that other
> implementers can choose to implement these functions if they wish.
> Similiarly of course they could suggest further functions to be
> added.

Hmm... I guess that with that approach you wouldn't mandate that a
processor had to support all the functions (in a particular module),
but leave it up to the author to check whether each function was
supported?

That sounds reasonable to me - it means that 'EXSLT conformant
processors' doesn't mean anything, but it means that implementers can
implement what they choose. (I was aiming for a middle ground where you
could have a processor that was conformant to a *part* of EXSLT, and
the modules were small enough for implementers to consider
implementing.)

I think that just throwing everything in isn't quite enough: we need
to discuss the functionality of some of the extensions - it's
particularly more of a problem with the elements rather than
functions, but taking a function as an example: should exsl:max()
return the maximum value (a number), a node that has the maximum value
(a node set) or a set of nodes all of which have the maximum value (a
node set)? Should it take a second argument, being a string to be
evaluated to get the value for the node?

We could of course have different functions with slightly different
functionalities.  Perhaps split them up by namespace.  But that's just
the situation that we're in now.

I guess that what I should do is encourage any opinions about each of
the functions by starting a thread about it. But I think that we
should have a separate mailing list if we're going to do that. There's
already way too much traffic here. Please will people mail me off list
with suggestions about where to go to set one up, or offers if they'd
like to host it.

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/



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