[Xpath-ng] Thoughts on work products

[Jeni Tennison]

Hi Eric,

> Now, even if that's not much fun, shouldn't we start by defining the
> problem we are trying to solve :-) ?

The problem as I see it: XPath should be something that's usable in
multiple different contexts -- in XSLT, in XQuery, in schema
languages, in XForms, in XPointer, in DOM, etc. etc. etc. XPath 2.0 is
so weighty (particularly because the XML Schema support) that it can't
be adopted wholesale into these different contexts, and doesn't have
easily identifiable modules, which means that we'll end up with
different parts being incorporated into different languages in
different ways. It's also a product of two communities (XSLT and
XQuery) with very different requirements pulling in different
directions which has led to some ugly compromises.

I think that the problem we should try to solve is to at least show
that a radically alternative design is possible.

The goals for XPath NG should be, I think:

 * Simplicity
 * Modularity
 * Extensibility
 * Schema language independence
 * Backwards compatibility

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/