Re: 'nother xslt2 engine
2004-11-15 17:28:18
Michael Kay wrote:
It's not schema-aware.
I discovered this same info after looking through there site... I did'nt
see any direct reference as to their plans in this regard but I did'nt
do a thourough scan either...
XPath 2.0 Functions Support
<snip/>
XSLT 2.0 Functions Support
<snip/>
Is there a real benefit in releasing a so called XSLT 2.0 processor that
is not fully compliant with the draft you released over a year ago AND
with several 1.0 based elements and functions from the 1.0 draft
released in 1999 missing as well! Releasing a press release suggesting
intent to deliver is one thing but with a specification that, as you
suggested last Auguest, may not reach final recommendation for at least
another year I am having a hard time understanding why a release with so
much of the Nov 2003 specification missing would not be at VERY LEAST
labeled an early beta at best and more realistically an alpha release.
Altova, you have plenty of time to do this right... why not take it? As
a developer interested in writing XSLT 2.0 stylesheets I would have a
hard time looking at a half-baked processor to play around with when I
could use a fully-baked and production ready processor like Saxon-B or
better yet Saxon-SA. Don't get me wrong... I stand full whole heartedly
behind ANY company, entity, or individual willing to the put the
necessary resources into building a XSLT 2.0 compliant processor. But it
scares me to see statements like:
"In addition to support for XSLT 1.0, Altova *XMLSpy® 2005* includes -->
the industry’s first production-grade implementation <-- of the
important new XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 specifications, which are both used
in XSLT development..."
We obviously no that this is an flat out lie (sorry Altova, Dr. Kay beat
you to the punch about 8 months ago from a complete spec standpoint and
by years from the standpoint of partial support for what would become
portions of the XSLT 2.0 spec) and a rediculous statement to make in
November of 2004 even if there was a 100% fully compliant XSLT 2.0
processor... which DOES NOT EXIST!!!
I'm sorry, but I am just flat out dissappointed that a company with as
much market share as Altova has with XML Spy would make contradictory
statements within a few clicks of each other on there own site. But to
add to this the claim they were the first to produce a production grade
implementation when anybody with even half there senses intact knows
that Saxon has been the bar at which EVERYTHING else has been measured
against for both compliance to the spec as well as the ability to run
production code with the same reliability and consistency that Dr. Kay
has built into Saxon.. And that is for both 1.0 AND 2.0 .... hmmmmm...
very disappointing Altova....
It's a good question, and I think it's still quite early days to tell,
because Saxon is certainly not using the schema information to anything like
its full potential at this stage.
The biggest advantage I have found so far comes from result document
validation: if your stylesheet generates invalid output, you get diagnostics
that point you straight at the line number containing the error. A simple
thing, but I think it can greatly speed up the process of developing a
stylesheet that produces correct output.
Coming back to the real world of XSLT 2.0 compliant processors -- Dr.
Kay, one of the "missing" portions of one of the projects I have worked
on over the last 8 months (AspectXML.org) is the ability to use Schema
to validate the input, the mapping, and then the output of the XSLT
1.0-based Aspect weaving engine. One of the things I see as great
potential with Saxon-SA (or any other XSLT 2.0 Schema-Aware compliant
processor that may become available in the future) is to introduce at
the Aspect Oriented Software Development level the ability to validate
every line of code that may be introduced via cross cutting concerns and
to ensure that choices can be made at run time what to do when the code
does'nt validate (e.g. stop the process, clean up the code to conform to
the standards set forth and continue, ignore it all together, etc...)
against a given schema, be it a static Schema that exists on the file
system or a dynamically woven schema that is then used to further
validate dynamically woven aspects. With IBM putting as much time and
money into the development of tools for AOSD as well as an every
increasing allocation of shelf space at Barnes & Noble and Borders &
there UK-based counterparts for AOSD related titles (my good friend Russ
Miles - who was the original creator of the idea for AspectXML of which
we then joined forces to build - just finished the AspectJ Cookbook - An
Oreilly Cookbook to me says a lot about where OReilly feels a particular
technology is already or is heading towards...) I have this sense that
utilizing the advanced features available in Saxon-SA coupled with
Schema and AspectXML could truly revolutionize the way software is
built, validated for conformance to particular standards, archived and
indexed for use at a later date within other projects.. and the list
goes on and on.
My question to you from the above statement then is what is your take on
using a processor like Saxon-SA to utilize a process involving a
combination of XML, XSLT, and Schema files to act as a pre-processor to
the compilation of a software project, be it an AOSD-based project or
even a standard OOP-based project?
To me I see MASSIVE gains that can come from this type of system - From
a 1 man development team to a 250 man corporate development project
(even more so at this level when you consider the amount of code that is
usually just left sitting on someones harddrive completely unkown and/or
unnoticed and as such reducing a companies assetts to a fraction of
there potential if this code were to be located, accessed, analyzed,
processed, validated, serialized as XML, and returned as an assett that
is now completely indexed and available for use). I realize that a lot
of this can be seen as Pipe Dream material and some may argue that these
types of tools already exist in other formats. While I won't argue
against this I will suggest that there is plenty of room for
improvement... Could a Schema-Aware processor like Saxon-SA be a key
factor in revolutionizing the way we build software - Structured XML and
Semi-structured text alike?
Thanks for any and all insite you are willing to give on this matter!
Best regards and thanks again for giving us Saxon!
<M:D/>
Michael Kay
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