RE: [xsl] ANNOUNCE: Petition to withdraw xsl:script from XSLT 1.1

[Evan Lenz <elenz@xyzfind.com>]

Don Park wrote:
> While I understand the arguments behind the petition, I am of
> the opinion that removing xsl:script will cause more harm than
> good because those who want to add them (i.e. Microsoft) will
> just do it, and developers in need of such feature will not
> be deterred by its non-standard nature.  As majority of XSLT
> is currently used on the server-side, demand for performance
> and flexibility will triumph over flag waving.

Well, even the use of xsl:script is "non-standard" if you consider extension
functions to be non-standard. From another perspective, msxsl:script *is*
standard, because it properly uses the XSLT 1.0 extension mechanisms.

Note that MSXML used to have an element called xsl:script, but this was not
standard under any definition of "standard". They changed this, bringing the
processor into conformance with XSLT 1.0 by treating it as an extension
element (msxsl:script) in another namespace.

None of the above, whether standard or not, is portable. That's why I don't
like xsl:script. It disguises the non-portability of extensions. Moreover,
it further encourages the use of extensions, even though every mechanism
needed for implementing extensions, whether embedded scripting in any
language you want or vendor's built-in extensions, is already provided in
XSLT 1.0.

Evan Lenz
XYZFind Corp.