[XML-SIG] Future plans

[uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com]

> Dieter Maurer wrote:

> > I have effectively discontinued work
> > on my PyXPath implementation on top of PyDOM, because only
> > very serious reasons justify the duplication of effort.

Paul Prescod:

> Dieter, is there any chance that your work could turn into a Python
> parser for XPaths that could be used in place of the 4thought one? I'm
> concerned about the portability of their C code. Even once they compile
> for Windows, there is still the Mac and other funky stuff. It might be
> nice to have a Python "backup" as with Pickle/CPickle, xmllib/sgmlop and
> so forth.

Multiple versions are always nice if the maintainers don't mind duplicating 
the work: choice is good as any of the users of the 8 or 9 XML libraries for 
Java or even XSLT processors for Java will attest.

However, I hardly think that sheer portability will be any more of an obstacle 
for 4XPath as it is for any other C-based technology.  Python itself uses 
C/Bison and is portable to multiple platforms, including "the MAC and other 
funky stuff".  I don't see why 4XSLT should be any different.  It uses no 
Posix commands, just the basic C library.

For platforms where Bison is hard to come by, the obvious solution is to 
generate the C parser source in Unix or Windows and compile them in the other 
platform.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji
FourThought LLC, IT Consultants
uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com	(970)481-0805
Software engineering, project management, Intranets and Extranets
http://FourThought.com		http://OpenTechnology.org