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RE: xslt core and intuition was RE: Reference to variable c annot be resolved.

2003-02-14 08:00:51
From: Kienle, Steven C [IT/0200] 
[mailto:steven(_dot_)c(_dot_)kienle(_at_)pharmacia(_dot_)com]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 5:57 AM
Subject: RE: xslt core and intuition was RE: [xsl] Reference 
to variable
c annot be resolved.


Actually, I'm not sure an intuitive language is good, or even 
possible.
Look at all spoken languages.  In the programming world, using C as an
example, there are many things which can be intuitively 
understandable with
enough knowledge of the core, but end up causing more bugs than that
intuition is worth:  for example

     if (i = j)

as an assignment and non-zero value test. That really does 
make intuitive
sense if you understand the history of the language.

Maybe this just reinforces your point, but someone experienced with a
procedural language will understand that "=" is an assignment operator and
"==" is an equality operator; however, in XSLT "=" is an equality expression
and <xsl:variable> is the assignment "operator."  That wouldn't see terribly
intuitive to me if I were just learning the language.  (Although your
programming mistake above, written as <xsl:if test="$i = $j">, would make
perfect sense to me now!)

cheers,
b.

| brian martinez                              
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