Re: p:with-input and compound steps

I totally agree that <p:for-each><p:with-input name="source"> is the way to
go.

The point of this change is to improve the language's usability by
simplifying it and making it more syntactically consistent. So we can't
introduce <p:with-input> for some step invocations and not others.

Perhaps when a step has been declared to have exactly one input then you
could invoke it using <p:with-input> without requiring a name, but such a
shortcut would have to be available consistently across all steps, not just
<p:for-each>. In any case, <p:for-each>'s input should have a defined name
anyway, so you could always refer to it by name if you wanted to.

Conal

On 23 September 2017 at 18:22, Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> wrote:

>
> So…is the input to p:for-each defining an input with either a name (an
> arbitrary name?) or no name, or is it connecting something to an input
> with either a name (an arbitrary name?) or no name?
>
> 1. <p:for-each>
>      <p:input>…</p:input>
>
> 2. <p:for-each>
>      <p:input name="source">…</p:input>
>
> 3. <p:for-each>
>      <p:input name="anythingIwant">…</p:input>
>
> 4. <p:for-each>
>      <p:with-input>…</p:with-input>
>
> 5. <p:for-each>
>      <p:with-input name="source">…</p:with-input>
>
> 6. <p:for-each>
>      <p:with-input name="anythingIwant">…</p:with-input>
>
> I think it’s probably easier to explain as p:with-input, so I think I
> favor 4, 5, and 6 over 1, 2, and 3. I don’t think option 6 makes any
> sense.
>
> Option 4 is appealing because there can be only one input and its name
> is irrelevant. But it introduces a new class of with-input tag: an
> anonymous one. Is the small savings in typing worth the cognative load
> of a new kind of thing?
>
> Option 5 is therefore the simplest and most consistent thing, I think.
>
>                                         Be seeing you,
>                                           norm
>
> --
> Norman Walsh
> Lead Engineer
> MarkLogic Corporation
> Phone: +1 512 761 6676
> www.marklogic.com
>



-- 
Conal Tuohy
http://conaltuohy.com/
@conal_tuohy
+61-466-324297