RE: [dom-xpath] XPath or? (was RE: Announcing www-dom-xpath@w3.org)

> From: www-dom-xpath-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-dom-xpath-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jonathan Robie
> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 10:35 PM
> To: Scott Boag/CAM/Lotus; www-dom-xpath@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [dom-xpath] XPath or? (was RE: Announcing
> www-dom-xpath@w3.org)
>
>
>...
>
> What kind of bloat are you concerned about, code size or complexity of
> implementations? I assume that you aren't concerned about adding a small
> handful of calls to the interface, since that wouldn't make a big
> difference. If XQL implementations are any guide, it's possible for one
> person to implement an abbreviated syntax XPath query engine in
> less than a
> month, but that *is* significant in terms of time. I think this
> API should
> be optional. On the other hand, this functionality is being added to many
> DOM implementations, and there is clearly benefit in establishing one way
> to do this - or am I missing something?

I think this is a very good point. The Oracles and Microsofts of this world
have implemented this as a useful feature anyway -- the question is just
whether we can get them to support a common well-defined API. I'm sure that
Steve Muench and Jonathan Marsh would be more than willing to add another
standardized XPath query call to their DOMs...