- From: Norm Tovey-Walsh <norm@saxonica.com>
- Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2025 10:12:59 +0000
- To: Alan Painter <alan.painter@gmail.com>
- Cc: "Liam R. E. Quin" <liam@fromoldbooks.org>, public-xslt-40@w3.org, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@googlemail.com>
> The argument for having generators as a separate library is that it can be a separate, parallel, somewhat independent initiative from QT4, hence a reduced effort for base QT4 functions and an even earlier QT4 release. As a fervent albeit non-practicing QT4 enthusiast, I would tend to vote for the separate library.
I think there are a few downsides to doing it in a library.
First, we abandoned any attempts to define a “module repository” system, so we don’t have an easy way for users to download and install modules.
Second, it might very well be the case that a library implementor might want to leverage BaseX features to improve performance, or Saxon features, or some other implementation’s features. That means multiple versions of the library or tedious complexity in it.
This is something like the argument that users can write these functions themselves if they need them. (Which obviates the need for someone who neither needs nor wants to understand them from having to be troubled by their presence in the spec.)
The counter argument that I found compelling to that approach is that the functions aren’t hard to write, but they’re a little bit subtle. Independent invention that gets the details wrong in slightly different ways is going to prohibit interoperability.
Be seeing you,
norm
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Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica
Received on Tuesday, 9 December 2025 10:13:06 UTC