Re: [dom-xpath] XPath or? (was RE: Announcing www-dom-xpath@w3.org)

c) is possible, if care is applied.  a) is preferable to b), in my opinion.
I would rather see "dozens of proprietary interfaces that all do the same
thing" for a year, than one "standard" interface on the DOM that we have to
live with forever and ever.  But I would rather see c).  The ad-hoc group
can be this mailing list, with members from XLink/XPointer, XML Query, DOM,
and XSL, keeping in mind that this is a stop-gap API, and it does not have
to be built into or directly part of the DOM API.  Perhaps we could think
of an limited XPath API in terms of base interfaces that will form the
foundation for a  XML Query API, and a XPointer API... in other words, in
the long run, the XPath API won't be meant to be used by itself.  Don't
know if this makes any sense... just thinking out loud.

-scott




                                                                                                                               
                    Jonathan Robie                                                                                             
                    <Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareA        To:     "Michael Champion" <Mike.Champion@softwareag.com>,                
                    G-USA.com>                       <www-dom-xpath@w3.org>                                                    
                    Sent by:                         cc:     (bcc: Scott Boag/CAM/Lotus)                                       
                    www-dom-xpath-request@w3.        Subject:     Re: [dom-xpath] XPath or? (was RE: Announcing                
                    org                              www-dom-xpath@w3.org)                                                     
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               
                    05/02/2000 06:05 PM                                                                                        
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               



At 04:53 PM 5/2/00 -0400, Michael Champion wrote:

>Aha! I think we all agree on this ... and the main reason the DOM WG had
>little interest in the XPath extensions is because most think it really
>should be someone else's baby.  BUT the Query WG is at least a year or so
>away from a Recommendation, and no WG is currently working on XPath (that
I
>know of), so the choices now are a) nothing happens for a year and we all
>hope that the Query WG does what we want; b) the DOM defines an XPath
>extension; or c) some ad-hoc group proposes an interim "standard" (a la
SAX,
>perhaps) and encourages vendors to support it.  I think this mailing list
is
>considering b) vs c) ... and a) is the default, I guess.

I think I agree with your analysis.

And unfortunately, the default will result in dozens of proprietary
interfaces that all do the same thing.

Jonathan

Received on Tuesday, 2 May 2000 17:53:05 UTC