Re: Directed vs Generic Syntax

/ Alex Milowski <alex@milowski.org> was heard to say:
| Taking the following example from Jeni Tennison's email:
[...]
| This means the pipeline compiler needs to understand each directed
| syntax--including extension steps.  While this adds to the implementors
| work, I think the end result is far simpler for the user.

But it makes it much more difficult for a pipeline to contain
additional elements that can be safely ignored (extensions or
documentation, for example).

I don't see any semantic distinction between this:

  <p:step name="p:xslt">
    <p:input select="$document" />
    <p:input name="stylesheet" href="foo.xsl" />
    <p:output href="result.xml" />
  </p:step>

and this:

  <p:xslt input="$document" stylesheet="foo.xsl"
          output="result.xml"/>

except that you've obscured the inputs and outputs from the point of
view of a reader and you've reduced the number of characters that have
to be typed a little bit.

After some consideration, I think I prefer <p:step name="p:xslt"> to
<p:xslt> and I am confident that I prefer <p:input> and <p:ouput> over
attributes. For one thing, it means that I can do this:

  <p:step name="p:xslt">
    <p:input name="document">
      <doc>
       <p>Some data</p>
      </doc>
    </p:input>
    ...

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended
recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by
reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.