Re: Javascript and GRDDL [#issue-whichlangs]

Stefano,

    While it's been a while, we have still kept your comments as
regarding "should/must" in supprot of XSLT1.0 in mind regarding GRDDL.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> Chimezie,
>
> thanks for your feedback and thanks for the WG for being willing to
> consider my feedback.
>
> As for which-langs issue, I continue to be slightly dissatisfied with
> the "should support XSLT1, may support others" resolution as I think
> that a "must support XSLT, may support others" (version should not be
> specified as XSLT has internal version control semantics) would be
> preferable at least for a baseline compatibility.
>   
To review, in the primer we have the words [1]:

"Generally, if the transformation can be fully expressed in XSLT 1.0
then it is preferable to use that format since GRDDL processors should
be capable of interpreting an XSLT 1.0 document."

Note that as regards the specification [2], we initially decided not to
use conformance labels [3] but then in light of security concerns
decided to use conformance labels in the specification only to define a
GRDDL-aware agent, but do provide the following strong wording regards
XSLT 1.0:

"XSLT version 1 is the format most widely supported by GRDDL-aware
agents as of this writing, though though XSLT2  deployment is
increasing. While technically Javascript, C, or virtually any other
programming language may be used to express transformations for GRDDL,
XSLT is specifically designed to express XML to XML transformations and
has some good safety characteristics."

We believe that this wording makes it very clear that XSLT 1.0 should be
supported by GRDDL-aware agents. However, in the light of Web
technologies (for example, Ben Adida's hGRDDL, which does not wish to
support XSLT 1.0 [4]), the general opinion as I have been able to gather
in the WG is that tying GRDDL with a "must" conformance label to XSLT
1.0 would be be premature. Does this reasoning and the strong wording in
the Primer and Spec satisfy you, given the constraint the the GRDDL WG
has at least one GRDDL developer that does not wish to support XSLT 1.0?

Of course, it is the ultimately use and the market that will decide
whether GRDDL aware-agents that do not support XSLT 1.0 will succeed or
not.

[1]http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/doc29/primer.html
[2]http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec
[3][2]http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec#issue-conformance-labels
[4] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/hGRDDL_Example

-- 
		-harry

Harry Halpin,  University of Edinburgh 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin 6B522426

Received on Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:17:26 UTC