Re: Alternative to x!y

Hi Norm,

> When I presented the XProc stuff, several folks commented that they
> didn't much like the x!y notation. I thought at least one person
> proposed a reasonable alternative. But I no longer recall what it was,
> if it even happened.
> 
> Anyone else recall? Or have thoughts?

I'm not sure if it was reasonable or not, but the only suggestion I 
remember was to separate the reference into different attributes. So 
instead of:

<p:input port="document" source="validated!result" />

you'd have something like:

<p:input port="document" source-step="validated" source-port="result" />

This is good for validation (it's possible to put together identity 
constraints on separate attributes whereas it isn't for the x!y 
notation), and might lead to easy defaulting that in the usual case 
means only one (or neither) of the attributes needs to be specified 
(source-step defaults to the immediately preceding step, source-port to 
the primary output).

On the other hand, it's a lot more verbose.

Cheers,

Jeni
-- 
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com

Received on Saturday, 19 August 2006 08:32:46 UTC