Re: key() Re: Saxon VS XT

[Paul Tchistopolskii <paul at qub dot com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

> > > Apparently Sebastian did not document his stylesheet.
> > > There was a thread some time ago upon the topic of embedding
> > > documentation within style sheets, for exactly this reason.
> >
> > I think it is very bad approach to 'solve' the readability problem
> > with writing the comments.  Code should be self-documenting.
>
> You are thinking of comments.  I was referring to actual _documentation_ since that is
basically what is needed here.  We discussed ways to annotate a functional XSLT file in
order to produce a new document which serves as the full documentation (i.e. what you ask
for).  This annotation should be possible for each and every tag, and provide a fuller set
of possibilities than just adding comments.

Yes, I know about the 'literate programming'. The mr's Knuth's idea
and the variations here sound nice, but I doubt anybody can really use it.

>
> I suggest you reread the thread in the archive upto the conclusions.
>
> > The language which *requires* usage of the 'tuning
> > roadsign' has no future. 'Tuning roadsign' is for tuning.
> > It is for 'computer'. 'Language' is for human beings.
>
> Well.  Back when C was in its infacy the "register" keyword allowed the programmer to
help the compiler.  When XSLT technology improves we can expect (while using a lot of
CPU-cycles) to have the XSLT processor detect and apply such optimizations automatically.
Another example is the quality and speed of Java interpreters, at the cost of complexity
and size of the interpreter/compiler.
>
> The original issue still applies:  A 100% conformant XSLT processor must implement
key(), in the same way that every C compiler today must recognize the "register" keyword.

Road-signs are OK.  But key() is unfortunalty *not* a 'plain' roadsign. I'm explaning
it in huge letter and if you dont understand what I'm saying here - I can explain it
again by mail.

'register' flag does not affect the readabality  of  your code.

Rgds.Paul.


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