EXSLT for XSLT 2.0: a new life for EXSLT?

[Florent Georges]

Dear EXSLTers,

On the one hand, EXSLT has been dormant for a while now, and on
the other hand, there are more and more demands for standardized
extensions for XSLT 2.0. So after an interesting discussion on
XSL List [http://markmail.org/message/saryji2fkhfdrt2w] (started
on the FXSL forum first,) it became clear that there is a demand
for something like EXSLT, but for XSLT 2.0.

So we (Dimitre, Vasu and me) thought to use this mailing list
to discuss those new extensions, and try to boost a bit the works
around EXSLT. To help summarizing the discussions and organizing
the ideas, I've set a wiki up at http://www.fgeorges.org/exslt2-wiki/
too.

Are you ok with this usage of the mailing list?

Regards,

[James Fuller]

+2 to that, though I will say for myself personally I am unable to
apply any cycles to this effort, I am fully behind it.

cheers, Jim Fuller

Post by Florent Georges
Dear EXSLTers,
On the one hand, EXSLT has been dormant for a while now, and on
the other hand, there are more and more demands for standardized
extensions for XSLT 2.0. So after an interesting discussion on
XSL List [http://markmail.org/message/saryji2fkhfdrt2w] (started
on the FXSL forum first,) it became clear that there is a demand
for something like EXSLT, but for XSLT 2.0.
So we (Dimitre, Vasu and me) thought to use this mailing list
to discuss those new extensions, and try to boost a bit the works
around EXSLT. To help summarizing the discussions and organizing
the ideas, I've set a wiki up at http://www.fgeorges.org/exslt2-wiki/
too.
Are you ok with this usage of the mailing list?
Regards,
--
Florent Georges
http://www.fgeorges.org/
_______________________________________________
exslt mailing list
http://www.exslt.org/list

[Florent Georges]

Post by James Fuller
+2 to that, though I will say for myself personally I am unable
to apply any cycles to this effort, I am fully behind it.

Thanks Jim. We all know you have spent a fair amount of time for
EXSLT, besides you spend it on something else cool for now!

Regards,

[Imap]

As it happens, the same subject came up at XML2008 today. Priscilla
Walmsley is interested as well. More when I am not travelling.

Thanks, -m

Sent from my iPhone

Post by Florent Georges
Dear EXSLTers,
On the one hand, EXSLT has been dormant for a while now, and on
the other hand, there are more and more demands for standardized
extensions for XSLT 2.0. So after an interesting discussion on
XSL List [http://markmail.org/message/saryji2fkhfdrt2w] (started
on the FXSL forum first,) it became clear that there is a demand
for something like EXSLT, but for XSLT 2.0.
So we (Dimitre, Vasu and me) thought to use this mailing list
to discuss those new extensions, and try to boost a bit the works
around EXSLT. To help summarizing the discussions and organizing
the ideas, I've set a wiki up at http://www.fgeorges.org/exslt2-wiki/
too.
Are you ok with this usage of the mailing list?
Regards,
--
Florent Georges
http://www.fgeorges.org/
_______________________________________________
exslt mailing list
http://www.exslt.org/list

[Micah Dubinko]

First off, hi everyone, and apologies for the poorly configured headers
on the previous message.

I've had discussions on and off with some of your around this topic for
a while, so I'm glad to see some real movement. Thanks, Florent, for
kicking this off.

As I mentioned, the discussion came up at the XML 2008 conference as
well, mainly between Priscilla Walmsley and me. I'l try to hit the high
points here, then take it to the wiki for detailed proposals.

1) We should be aware the context of the extension, namely XPath 2.0,
XSLT 2.0, or XQuery. A large part of EXSLT 1.0 was actually XPath
extensions. Now that multiple langauges are based on XPath, the
distinction is more relevant.

2) In particular we talked about a few categories of functions:
* Eval
* Functions interesting to implementations that support both XSLT and XQuery
* Request/Response stuff

It was interesting that at the eXist talk [1] the very first function
the speaker introduced, before any standard fn stuff, was
request:get-parameter(). This was so that every example he showed could
be a complete program, clickable from a link. It would be good for the
low-hanging fruit--things everybody already supports under a different
name--to get under a community umbrella.

Thanks, -m

[1]
http://dubinko.info/blog/2008/12/11/xml-2008-liveblog-introduction-to-exist-and-xquery/

Post by Imap
As it happens, the same subject came up at XML2008 today. Priscilla
Walmsley is interested as well. More when I am not travelling.
Thanks, -m
Sent from my iPhone

Post by Florent Georges
Dear EXSLTers,
On the one hand, EXSLT has been dormant for a while now, and on
the other hand, there are more and more demands for standardized
extensions for XSLT 2.0. So after an interesting discussion on
XSL List [http://markmail.org/message/saryji2fkhfdrt2w] (started
on the FXSL forum first,) it became clear that there is a demand
for something like EXSLT, but for XSLT 2.0.
So we (Dimitre, Vasu and me) thought to use this mailing list
to discuss those new extensions, and try to boost a bit the works
around EXSLT. To help summarizing the discussions and organizing
the ideas, I've set a wiki up at http://www.fgeorges.org/exslt2-wiki/
too.

[John Snelson]

Hi everyone,

Let me introduce myself - my name is John Snelson, and I work for Oracle
implementing Berkeley DB XML (an XML database), and XQilla (a
stand-alone XQuery implementation, working towards also being an XSLT
2.0 implementation). I'd like to offer any help I can give towards the
EXSLT 2.0 initiative.

Post by Micah Dubinko
1) We should be aware the context of the extension, namely XPath 2.0,
XSLT 2.0, or XQuery. A large part of EXSLT 1.0 was actually XPath
extensions. Now that multiple langauges are based on XPath, the
distinction is more relevant.

I'm a member of the XQuery working group, where I've been pushing to see
if we can start some community initiatives (EXQuery?) for a while. I
think both XQuery and XSLT users stand to benefit from a community
focused on defining useful extensions to this family of languages.

Post by Micah Dubinko
* Eval
* Functions interesting to implementations that support both XSLT and XQuery
* Request/Response stuff

I agree completely - I've had a number of detailed discussions about all
these areas recently. There are people who've already thought about
these a lot, and I'm sure they could be persuaded to take part if
appropriate.

Other ideas are:

* Inheriting the functions that are still useful from EXSLT (math,
random...)
* Full support for REST calls out and in
* SQL access
* JSON parsing / serialization

A few more ambitious things could probably be achieved with functions,
but it might make more sense to have new syntax for:

* Higher order functions (wrt Dimitre's work in XSLT)
* Tuples (named members, type known at compile time)
* Maps (more loosely typed, members only known at runtime)

John