Re: What's your visual metaphor for XSL Transformation

On 3/23/07, bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Okay 2 things here;
>
> 1.
> I would like the examples of these things. Not because I don't believe
> they exist but because I would like to see if there are some I hadn't
> thought of before (is this 2.0 we're talking about, probably give lots
> more examples that way)

You are not saying exactly which "these things".

I guess I meant: >   People are seriouly considering XSLT
transformations that implement

fundamenal (and non-stop) server-side logic.

I inferred non-stop to mean a transformation that was running
continually, not one that was started with each GET for example

There are plenty of XSLT 1.0 examples of useful transformations that
do not need/use a source xml document.

Take for example Jeni's famous stylesheets that you have to
double-click on their names in Windows Explorer in order to get them
going.

Okay haven't seen these but I suppose that it is done with the
processing instruction with the stylesheet calling itself. This is a
nice hack yes, but by my definition of input document it still needs
an input document.

To be more precise, it is a transformation that can be *unlimited, or
indefinite* in time, not the transformation engine.

sorry I didn't read your post as meaning a transformation that takes
however long it needs to complete its calculation. From your language
I assumed a transformation that was never assumed to stop, that ran
forever and output a stream of markup. Let's say a Jabber bot that
runs against itself. Of course I immediately thought, well that might
cause problems.

> > Just to repeat:
> >
> >   There are no technical or practical reasons why a transformation
> > should not be unlimited in time.

the practical reasons have to do with what your hardware or processor
can handle I suppose, or maybe how long a human being can wait to get
the result of a calculation, but I agree that unlimited when meaning
until the calculation is complete is fine, unlimited when assumed to
mean running continually would be something different.

By the way, I don't know if you took it as such but this was not meant
to be an attack on using XSL-T for innovative things it is supposed
generally not meant for, especially as I have probably done quite a
bit of that, it was looking to see if you had some examples I wasn't
aware of. I am aware of FXSL and follow it quite a bit.

Cheers,
Bryan Rasmussen