Re: Ignoring ambiguous matches

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ihe,
>

>
> The visitor pattern only exposes this logic to make it easier to (re)configure.
>

I have never understood that thing and if i ever did I would forget it.

>
> As for missing language features -- my approach has always been a
> pragmatic one, and XSLT in all its versions has always contained a
> strong dose of the pragmatic, so I have been happy. XSLT 3.0 gives us
> functions as first-class objects and that will presumably put this to
> rest for you or help to do so (although I dare say people will always
> have complaints). Yet I have always been more interested in making
> things work with what we have than in speculating about possible
> worlds in which we do not actually live.
>

You will not find a complaint about lack of higher order features from
me. I've always accepted that aspect of the language.

I'm not a  believer in trying to make languages do what they were not
designed to do because the solution will tend not to be expressive of
the ideas and  characteristics of the problem.  Instead,  I am
inclined to use a different language,  but this is why I don't like
programming in  monotheistic languages.

You will find that the nature of my enquiries tends to be if it does
this - one would have thought it would do that as well. Why don't we
have higher order programming (pre 3.0) is not within the ambit of
such an outlook. To be honest even now that I have access to it via
XQuery 3.0 I only resort to it sparingly.