Re: [ANN] XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0 were published on 16 Nov 1999

[ht@markup.co.uk (Henry S. Thompson)]

Hans-Juergen Rennau <hrennau@yahoo.de> writes:

> I would very much like to learn something about the history leading
> to these groundbreaking specifications. The question which puzzles
> me most is whether the basic idea of XPath
> (axis+node-test+predicates & the semantics of the slash operator)
> were the brain child of a single person or a group of people,
> whether it appeared already in full shape or emerged in an iterative
> process?

My memory is that many of the crucial steps were taken at a joint WG
meeting in the South Bay, I think hosted by what was then called
Commerce One (later Veo), to try to get a consistent story about
element identification between the CSS and XSL groups.  The key
breakthrough at that meeting, IIRC, was an agreement on separating the
surface syntax from the abstract syntax.  I _think_ Vincent Quint
chaired the meeting.  There was another CSS/XSL meeting at an early
point, chaired by Steve Zilles, which had in my memory a bit more
of an adversarial feel to it (not Steve's fault, he was brought in as
a neutral chair for the day and did his best to keep things from
boiling over).

Others with better memories can probably give more details, and there
should be minutes somewhere once someone can come up with
precise dates...

ht
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