I think a huge part of the problem is
a) for many users, these systems are ancillary - they’re not part of the core
revenue generation system - and thus the emphasis is on cost minimisation,
rather than investment in the return they generate (ie, they don’t generate a
return); and
b) so many of our basic development tools - Python is a good example - are
built on free libraries that were once core systems for their developers
(libxml2, MSXML) but have not been core for more than a decade, and thus still
exist but have no development future (there’s no return to their developer in
developing them and hasn’t been for many years).
That is, either the systems that have been built on XSLT 1.0 are not core (or
at least are no longer core) to their owners, or their underlying stack
includes key subsystems that are not core (or are at least no longer core) to
*their* owners. Thus there is no investment model for either for which the
(opportunity) cost of further development does not exceed the value of that
development.
It's sad how very little of the value that the user community has got from good
XSLT processors has been fed back to the developers to produce better XSLT
processors.
Yes, indeed. If more developers of the key tools had a model like Saxonica (and
had managed to make it work) then at the least b) would not be true as often as
it is.
On 24 Nov 2020, at 5:44 am, Michael Kay
mike(_at_)saxonica(_dot_)com<mailto:mike(_at_)saxonica(_dot_)com>
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com<mailto:xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>>
wrote:
AND, there are things tool vendors can to do make updating easier. For example,
providing guidance on how to "fix" things that "break" in such an upgrade.
I've recently been trying to help a Saxon user who's managed to get about 10
major releases behind, and it isn't pretty. Most of the things we do to ease
upgrade, like keeping things deprecated for a release or two before they are
withdrawn, don't work in that situation. Their worst problem though is that
they don't have a decent set of regression tests so they just don't know
whether their upgrade has been successful or not. That plus the fact that if
you close your eyes for ten years and then open them up again, the world is a
different place and you're completely disoriented.
I'm afraid the more people get out of the habit of paying real money for the
software they use, the less the amount of investment that goes into such
luxuries. Even when users are paying, $500 doesn't buy you much support.
It's sad how very little of the value that the user community has got from good
XSLT processors has been fed back to the developers to produce better XSLT
processors.
Michael Kay
Saxonica
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