On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Wendell Piez
<wapiez(_at_)wendellpiez(_dot_)com> wrote:
Ihe,
http://www.biglist.com/lists/lists.mulberrytech.com/xsl-list/archives/201211/msg00170.html
Indeed. You are not the only one to find 'except' to be contrary to
what you expect, in view of its natural-language usage in English.
(D*mned prepositions.)
When reading XPath, my brain more or less automatically assumes
everything is a relative path from the context node (that is, it
traverses the tree relatively until an absolute path is given), so I
mentally translate ($a except $b) as "my $a except my $b". So "my $a
except my 'blah' element children" ($a except blah) doesn't freak me
out.
Some see a programming language purely as a means of getting things
done thus are willing to "play computer" if a programming language or
language feature requires them to.
I like to think of a programming language as a means of expressing
ideas. That is why for me - the spec said so is not by itself a good
enough answer.
I reject/avoid languages and features whose implementation doesn't
give me a sufficiently proximate representation (and thats a personal
judgement) of the idea I am expressing. That would include things that
require me to suspend how I think a humane would normally parse an
expression in order to conform with the way the language implements it
- which is a more elaborate way of saying languages and features that
require me to play computer.
Not saying others are wrong - because it's a source of tension on the
list - thats just what I do.
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