Re: [docbook-apps] Rethinking XSLT 2.0 design

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

Norman Walsh wrote:

> 1. It's very expensive. The entire document gets processed at least
> twice. While the idea of simplifying the "downstream" design seemed
> very attractive, I think the cost is too high.

I think that multiple passes over document are necessary anyway -- I
think that profiling should be default in XSLT 2.0 stylesheets. Also I'm
now working on transclusions use-cases document for DocBook TC and in
DocBook specific transclusion mechanisms is emerging in my head. This
means another pass over the document.

I'm not sure whether "normalization" was good or bad, but I think that
its processing burden is not so high compared to stylesheets load time.

> 2. It doesn't actually simplify things. Oh, in theory it does, but in
> practice, it's harder to debug because the document you're looking at
> isn't actually the one being styled.

That's true.

> 4. I made a DB4 to DB5 conversion phase part of that normalization,
> and that makes the problems even worse (three phases, an even broader
> disconnect).

What about not supporting DB4 in XSLT 2.0 stylesheets? It will simplify
things and users can always run their own DB4->DB5 process before
stylesheets are applied.

My idea was to provide pre-trasformation hook which will allow
interception of document before it gets processed. Such facility could
be useful for implementing things like profiling or transclusions etc.

				Jirka

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