Re: XPath "//", speed, and Saxon

On Mon, Nov 03 2008 12:51:58 +0000, mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
...
> Incidentally, one minor comment
>
>>Only xsltproc provides a command-line switch for running the transformation
> time multiple times 
>
> Saxon has had such a switch for some time, though only recent releases have
> documented it (-repeat:99).

I had subsequently found the original three switches in the Saxon source
code and had mentioned them in later deliveries of the tutorial.

> I think there's another important (if obvious) point that's not made in the
> paper: don't assume that your performance problem is in the XSLT code until
> you've drilled down to that level. I did a bit of tuning for a client
> recently where it turned out 80% of the cost was spent in some simple
> user-written code to generate the XML input for the transformation.

To paraphrase Knuth (another giant who must surely have sore shoulders
by now): premature optimisation is the root of all evil.

Regards,


Tony Graham                         Tony.Graham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Director                                  W3C XSL FO SG Invited Expert
Menteith Consulting Ltd
XML, XSL and XSLT consulting, programming and training
Registered Office: 13 Kelly's Bay Beach, Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Registered in Ireland - No. 428599   http://www.menteithconsulting.com
  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
xmlroff XSL Formatter                               http://xmlroff.org
xslide Emacs mode                  http://www.menteith.com/wiki/xslide
Unicode: A Primer                               urn:isbn:0-7645-4625-2