short names (was: Re: XSL WG telcon Agenda for Thursday, 8 September)

> On Sep 7, 2016, at 4:38 PM, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> 6.1 Options for what https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt <https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt>
> Carines' action item email.  To be discussed.
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xsl-wg/2016Mar/0011.html
> 
> We expect to begin the discussion of this topic on 8 September.

If we do discuss this today, or soon, I might as well put some 
thoughts in writing:

Notes on short names:

1 please make xslt10 and xslt-10, xslt20 and xslt-20 (etc.) all do the
same thing, pairwise.  It drives me crazy trying to remember which
specs use a hyphen in their short name and which don't.

2 Please let us remove the red box from XPath 3.0: it is referred to
normatively from the XSLT spec currently in development and is in that
sense obsolete only if XSLT 3.0 is obsolete.  I think you can see why
I think we should resist that conclusion.

3 I am not at all convinced that all users of XSLT 1.0 should or can
move to current versions of XSLT: there are still native 1.0
implementations in Web browsers, and those who use them are not
necessarily in a position to move to 2.0 or 3.0, even given Saxon CE
and Saxon-JS.

Not all users of XSLT 1.0 in the browser are 'direct' users, so to
speak.  Among the users of XSLT 1.0 in the browsers are users of
XSLTForms, an in-browser implementation of XForms.

4 Even less am I convinced that all users of XPath 1.0 can be told to
move on.  XPath 1.0 is simpe enough that requiring an implementation
of it as part of an XForms implementation is a relatively modest
implementation burden.  Requiring an XPath 2.0 or 3.0 implementation
is a much heavier burden.

So I would prefer that we not have a red box on the XPath 1.0 spec,
but a less irritating color, with carefully chosen words.

Just my two cents.

Michael

********************************************
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Black Mesa Technologies LLC
cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com
http://www.blackmesatech.com
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Received on Thursday, 8 September 2016 16:03:18 UTC