xml-dev - RE: XLink transformations

[Ben Trafford <ben@legendary.org>]

At 01:38 PM 7/18/00 +0100, Steve Boyce wrote:
>This is: How is XLink anything other that a particular instance of XSLT?
>That is to say, if I have a schema S then Xlink is a transformation to a
>"linked schema" S' (S' will be a member of a set of all the possible linked
>schemas of S, if you see what I mean).  Wouldn't it be better to try and
>work in these terms?

         Hrm. I'm not sure where you're coming from, so please excuse me if 
my answer isn't really an answer. :^)

         An XLink can exist in any XML document, including one that is 
displayed without a formal transformation process (such as in the XML+CSS 
case). If we worked solely in the terms of a transformation, then we'd lose 
the ability to natively display XML using stylesheet languages that are not 
reliant on transformation in any standardized fashion (rendering engines 
transform by their nature, but requiring it before processing seems a 
little bit of overkill, to me).

>And this relates very obviously to a (mis)understanding I have about
>XSL/XSLT.  Don't these "secretly" presuppose that they are mapping from one
>schema to another schema?  I mean, if I write a stylesheet, in reality I
>have in mind a source and destination schema.  Shouldn't these be made
>explicit?

         Well, no, because "schema" in the XML world seems to assume that 
some sort of document validation is necessary. It isn't. I don't 
necessarily want to have to generate a schema every time I do a 
transformation. Maybe I just want well-formed XML. Or am I missing the point?

--->Ben Trafford