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Re: [xsl] Where is XSLT 2.0 support in PHP?


Subject: Re: [xsl] Where is XSLT 2.0 support in PHP?
From: Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:55:42 +1000

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:54, Michael Ludwig<milu71@xxxxxx> wrote:
> If you're really interested in this issue, you could ask on the LibXSLT
> list, A while ago (several months, maybe a year) there was a discussion
> on how LibXSLT could be updated to 2.0. I don't know what has become of
> it so far.

Yeah, this discussion comes up now and then. I think the short answer
is, if you've got the time to do it, by all means do it, but the
LibXSLT / LibXML guys are busy doing other things and don't have any
pressing *reason* for doing XSLT 2.0; it requires a rewrite of the
LibXML as well as a new LibXSLT (XSLT 2.0 isn't simply a refinement of
the 1.0 standard; it seriously alters basic premises), and this is
sounding more like a "10 developers for a couple of years" project
more than something any geezer can whip up in a school term. XSLT 2.0
may be cleaner, but it is by no means easier to implement.

Now, if your PHP-foo is high, there's plenty of extensions to what's
there in order to do most things you want, including regExp and
for-each-group. It's not a purist approach, but very pragmatic and -
quite possibly - the reason no one is pushing hard on native support
for it right now. There's simply not enough people demanding it, and
there's probably some good reason for it;

PHP is the pragmatist hackers platform, not a purist haven (although
PHP 6 is looking sexy!) PHP is not really your average Enterprise
stack, and even if XSLT 2.0 brings a lot of handy and excellent
solutions to where traditionally Enterprisey stacks go, the RESTful
nature of the PHP calls demands a quick and low-footprint response, so
we tend to keep it simple. Not to say that XSLT 2.0 would far more
complex, but switching from XSLT 1.0 to 2.0 on the PHP stack is not
the same as simply importing in Java or Ruby, another technical reason
for its delay.

The short answer, I think, is, if you've got the time, knock yourself
out. If not, rally up good reasons for doing it, and then rally up
other people agreeing with you. And then report your findings in a
positive way, and even better yet, find a sponsor that needs XSLT 2.0
as bad as you do. Or go all the way, and find someone with an XSLT 2.0
processor that's willing to donate their hard work to open-source! And
then we might see it happening. Or not. :)


Regards,

Alex
-- 
 Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
--- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ----------------------------------------------
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