Re: Identity Component

On 1/31/07, Norman Walsh <Norman.Walsh@sun.com> wrote:
>
>
> We decided not to have implicit processing of sequences. I think the
> identity component should take a single document, not a sequence.



I agree with not having implicit iteration.  In this case I don't see this
as iteration as it is copying the input to the output.

We have said that a component that produces a sequence would be
allowed to be hooked up to a component that takes a single document
as long as the sequence was a singleton.  I think the reverse needs to
be true in that a single document should be able to be treated as a
singleton.

If we don't allow identity to process sequences, then an author has
to do different things to setup and identity step or placeholder depending
on where they are in their pipeline.  I think that will make things
difficult for the pipeline author to understand.


-- 
--Alex Milowski
"The excellence of grammar as a guide is proportional to the paucity of the
inflexions, i.e. to the degree of analysis effected by the language
considered."

Bertrand Russell in a footnote of Principles of Mathematics