Re: [xsl] simple XPath question

[Wendell Piez <wapiez at mulberrytech dot com>]

Jeni--

Understood. Not that they still couldn't write the books (and make whatever 
profit is to be made). Or that the facts suggest (since they haven't 
written the books) that their intentions were opposite, namely to make 
XSLT/XPath easy. Or that they actually succeeded. I guess I should be on 
record as saying (as someone who hasn't had any formal CS training) that I 
think they *are* fundamentally easy, astonishingly so considering what they 
are asked to do, and notwithstanding all the nuances and subtleties. What I 
like to call the "Mysteries of XSL" (things like the built-in template 
processing, or the implicit and automatic casting of datatypes when 
evaluating expressions) *can* be seen to the bottom. What an astonishing 
language.

Then there's the list. :grins.

Maybe we can entice some of them to write books anyway. :-) (But I'd like 
*you* to write the one on the Mysteries.)

No apologies needed. Thanks for being here, Jeni.
Wendell


At 09:48 AM 7/4/01, Jeni Tennison wrote:
>Hi Wendell,
>
> >>They probably wanted to make sure that they could make some money by
> >>writing books explaining it ;)
> >
> > Except how many of em did?! (Steve Muench I guess. Good book, too.
> > But not about XPath!)
> >
> > Mike only becoming a "designer" *after* his book was out....
>
>I was being flippant. The idea that the XSL WG would conspire to
>tailor XSLT specifically to be hard to understand in order to make a
>profit, but have their entrepreneurial foresight be stymied by Mr
>Kay's dedication to the cause appealed to me :)
>
>Sorry.
>
>Jeni

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