(retry) Re: [SML] Whether to support Attribute or not?

[Oren Ben-Kiki]

Leigh Dodds <ldodds at ingenta.com> wrote:
> Without wanting to detract from Oren's posting, or sound facietious...
>
> In these examples it seems implicit that you're assuming that your
> streaming XSLT processor uses an XML parser (or an SML parser
> that supports attributes and namespaces) - as the XSLT examples
> clearly use attributes.

I wanted to discuss the semantics of S-XSLT (or SSLT), so I stuck to the
known XSLT syntax. Naturally, if SML did not provide attributes, _and_ if a
separate SSLT language was to be used, then it too would avoid attributes.
It isn't yet clear that SSLT is viable, even assuming SML is. We might
settle on simply using XSLT on SML input.

> ... Don't these knock-on effects on other standards smack of re-inventing
> the wheel?

Well, in SSLT you could make a good case for simply using XSLT "as is".
There's no reason we _must_ write the stylesheets in SML. I personally would
not be interested in a separate SSLT spec unless it provided some advantage
over XSLT - such as streaming. Just switching syntax from XML to SML isn't
worth it.

Other XML specs don't have this option. How would one handle XLink in SML?
Obviously not by using an "href" attribute, if attributes are not
supported... Maybe we could set up a standard conversion from XML specs to
SML specs. I assume it is agreed that SML does need something like XLink...

> Or am I missing something here, and I've now got egg all over
> my face?

No, that's a perfectly good question, and why some people doubt that SML is
useful in the first place. SML does not claim to cover any new ground, just
as XML didn't when compared to SGML. At this point, either you buy the
notion that the XML specs are too complex or you don't.

Have fun,

    Oren Ben-Kiki


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