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   RE: [xml-dev] XPath/XSLT 2.0 concerns

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If people spent as much times giving feedback to W3C working groups as
they spent angrily and impotently railing on XML-DEV maybe some progress
would be made.  

However I just looked at the W3C XML Query archive and even though my
XML-DEV folder has about 100 messages wailing about XQuery and XPath
2.0, I don't see one message related to the XML-DEV discussion. I guess
people just love to complain instead of providing constructive feedback.


-- 
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM 
The meek shall inherit the Earth....if that's all right with the rest of
you.          

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. 

>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@xegesis.org] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 9:00 PM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org; Simon St.Laurent
> 
> 10/1/2002 11:51:12 AM, "Simon St.Laurent" 
> <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:
> 
> >Elliotte Rusty Harold notes:
> >> Don't forget that DOM3 Abstract Schemas is precedent for killing a 
> >> spec that is off the rails. It doesn't happen often, but it does 
> >> happen.
> >
> >Did that get killed because it went off the rails, or 
> because of lack 
> >of interest?  Lots of W3C projects seem to wither for lack 
> of interest.
> 
> 
> The basic reason is that the DOM abstract schemas thingie 
> really didn't meet anyone's requirements.  The original idea 
> was to find the intersection of what DTDs, XSD schemas, and 
> other schemas We assumed at the time that the "other" would 
> be XDR, but Microsoft seems to have been pretty diligent at 
> stomping that out of the world's collective mindshare.  As it 
> turns out, the obvious "other" would be RELAX NG).  The 
> trouble is, nobody really wants such an API, or at least 
> nobody made themselves known.  We tried adding features to 
> try to hit the 80/20 point in W3C XSDL capabilities, but that 
> led to something that was too complex and ugly for the DTD 
> and RELAX NG users, and nowhere near adequate for the XSDL 
> power users who really wanted it supported in the DOM.
> 
> This is not really a precedent for XPath 2 getting major 
> surgery, IMHO.
> The DOM WG is a very different beast from the 
> XPath/XSLST/XQuery mega-group.
> There are maybe 8 people actively involved (and I'm just 
> barely one of them).  It's REAL easy to decide to cut things 
> out when the alternative is to stay up later every night.  
> It's hard when there are plenty of people to appoint to Yet 
> Another Taskforce. 
> 
> Also, folks, y'all gotta get over this quaint idea that "The 
> W3C" is some purposeful entity.  Look at that XHTML - XLink 
> situation ... or the DOM vs XLink data models.  The different 
> groups have very different outlooks, e.g. the DOM (largely 
> staffed by XML authoring vendors in its early days, when both 
> Arbortext and SoftQuad sent two representatives apiece) 
> traditionally really really cares about round-tripping 
> syntax, and XPath has been traditionally oriented toward 
> read-only/throw away the syntax sugar. 
> 
> So, given the different worldviews, operating assumptions, 
> and resource constraints, I don't think the demise of the 
> DOM3 Abstract Schema stuff is a precedent that the XPath 
> people will jump on.  I agree with Jenni's original point -- 
> if you don't like the complexity of this stuff, scream, yell, 
> rasise issues, let
> the  W3C (whatever that means!) know that you won't implement 
> it, etc.   Also,
> let the vendors you plan to buy XPath-enabled products from 
> what your preferences are.  By default, they are going to do 
> the safe thing and promise to support whatever the W3C comes 
> up with. If you don't plan to buy products for the XPath 2 
> features, that might trigger some reassessments.
> 
> 
> 
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