RE: [xml-dev] help request: incremental XSLT(-ish?) in javascript

["Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>]

> 
> I want a second DOM around - an XML object.   The HTML
> DOM for the page is related to the XML object either 
> literally by an XSLT script or by something similar.
> When I change the *XML DOM* - I want the HTML transformed DOM 
> to be incrementally updated.
> 
...
> 
> I am looking for a way so that if the Javascript program 
> modifies the XML - say by adding an additional book - that 
> the HTML DOM is automagically updated, say by inserting a new 
> "li" element in the appropriate place.
> 

Incremental transformation - only changing those parts of the output that
are affected by a change to the input - was one of the potential benefits
touted when XSLT was designed, and was said to be possible because of the
declarative nature of XSLT. In practice, it hasn't been delivered. I'm sure
it can be done in principle, as demonstrated by the "back-mapping" done by
debugging tools, which link elements in the output to the elements in the
input from which they were derived. But there's not much investment going
into client-side XSLT, which might have something to do with the fact that
it's rather hard to make a business case for such investment.

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay