[XML-SIG] Re: saxlib 1.0beta

[Andrew Kuchling]

Paul Prescod writes:
>Yes. The DOM may also present performance problems. Python objects are a
>little heavyweight for large documents. Maybe someone will/should write a
>DOM in C. I wouldn't expect it to be that large or complicated. It would

	One complication might be annotation of the tree; you might
want to operate on a tree and add your own attributes.  That can be
handled in C easily enough (a dictionary object that gets created only
if you actually use it), but perhaps some different interface should
be used. (I'd hope not, though; 'node.myAttr = 42' would be so natural.)

>I was waiting for the next SAX release, but now I'm in the final stages of
>a book. Keep me updated on your progress and I'll try to squeeze my stuff
>in before 1.0. I could do a tutorial and an example program.

	1.0 is still a way off, I think; with just SAX, I'd call it
version 0.6 or .7 or thereabouts.  (Or do people think it should be
1.0, and DOM/other stuff would be 1.1 or 2.0?  Feel free to
disagree with me...)  Concentrate on your book, because I want to get
a copy as soon as possible.  :)

>1.6). Maybe I'm naive about what it means and takes to release a new
>version, but what's the harm in perfecting the XML and Unicode stuff and
>releasing it as 1.6 in say, three months? It could even be a minor

	That's Guido's decision.  Personally, I want to see Unicode in
the next Python, and also do some major work on PCRE, which
unfortunately keeps getting buried deeper on my stack--ARGH!  (My
project page says "Work should start in April"--yeah, right.)

	The Unicode work thus far has focused on a wide character
string type, and making it seamlessly work with regular strings (at
least at the Python level)--now I'm starting to wonder if using UTF-8
for everything would be better.  That's a String-SIG problem...

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/
The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his
powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.
    -- Michael Faraday