IRC log of xproc on 2007-10-04

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:57:15 [RRSAgent]
RRSAgent has joined #xproc
14:57:15 [RRSAgent]
logging to http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc
14:57:18 [Norm]
Zakim, this will be xproc
14:57:18 [Zakim]
ok, Norm; I see XML_PMWG()11:00AM scheduled to start in 3 minutes
14:57:22 [Norm]
Meeting: XML Processing Model WG
14:57:22 [Norm]
Date: 4 October 2007
14:57:22 [Norm]
Agenda: http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/10/04-agenda
14:57:22 [Norm]
number Meeting: 86, T-minus 4 weeks
14:57:22 [Norm]
Chair: Norm
14:57:25 [Norm]
Scribe: Norm
14:57:27 [Norm]
ScribeNick: Norm
14:58:17 [MoZ]
Zakim, what is the code ?
14:58:17 [Zakim]
the conference code is 97762 (tel:+1.617.761.6200 tel:+33.4.89.06.34.99 tel:+44.117.370.6152), MoZ
15:00:22 [Zakim]
XML_PMWG()11:00AM has now started
15:00:25 [Zakim]
+[ArborText]
15:00:35 [Zakim]
+[IPcaller]
15:00:38 [avernet]
zakim, [ is avernet
15:00:41 [Zakim]
-[IPcaller]
15:00:45 [Zakim]
+[IPcaller]
15:00:51 [Zakim]
+avernet; got it
15:01:17 [Zakim]
+Norm
15:01:17 [Norm]
Zakim, who's on the phone?
15:01:37 [Zakim]
On the phone I see avernet, PGrosso, Norm
15:01:41 [Zakim]
+MoZ
15:02:40 [ht]
zakim, please call ht-781
15:02:40 [Zakim]
ok, ht; the call is being made
15:02:41 [Zakim]
+Ht
15:03:05 [richard]
richard has joined #xproc
15:03:08 [alexmilowski]
alexmilowski has joined #xproc
15:03:39 [Zakim]
+??P35
15:03:40 [richard]
zakim, ? is me
15:03:40 [Zakim]
+richard; got it
15:04:00 [Zakim]
+Alex_Milowski
15:04:06 [Norm]
Zakim, who's on the phone?
15:04:10 [Zakim]
On the phone I see avernet, PGrosso, Norm, MoZ, Ht, richard, Alex_Milowski
15:04:17 [Zakim]
+??P21
15:04:34 [ruilopes]
Zakim, ?? is me
15:04:34 [Zakim]
+ruilopes; got it
15:04:49 [Norm]
Present: Alessandro, Paul, Norm, Mohamed, Henry, Richard, Alex, Rui
15:05:09 [Norm]
Topic: Accept this agenda?
15:05:09 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/27-agenda
15:05:19 [Norm]
Accepted.
15:05:26 [Norm]
Topic: Accept minutes from the previous meeting?
15:05:26 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/13-minutes
15:05:36 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/27-minutes
15:05:40 [Norm]
Accepted.
15:05:50 [Norm]
Topic: Next meeting: telcon 11 October 2007
15:06:03 [Norm]
Mohamed gives regrets.
15:06:18 [Norm]
Topic: Review of XSLT streaming requirements
15:06:42 [Norm]
Murray reviewed it, but suggested that someone with more implementation experience should also take a look.
15:07:07 [Norm]
ACTION: Alex to review before the face-to-face.
15:08:08 [Norm]
Paul: Discounted hotel reservations for the face-to-face expired yesterday.
15:08:19 [Norm]
Norm: Yes, and hotel rooms are ahrd to come by that week; good luck!
15:08:24 [Norm]
Norm: Who's coming?
15:08:30 [alexmilowski]
me!
15:08:32 [alexmilowski]
:)
15:09:01 [Norm]
Henry, Norm, Paul, Alex, Richard is tentative
15:09:46 [Norm]
Richard: Comments to the comments list, but many of them turn into long discussions.
15:10:38 [Andrew]
Andrew has joined #xproc
15:11:05 [Zakim]
+??P3
15:11:10 [Norm]
Norm: I think it's ok if we only have admin on the WG list. New last call comments should go on the ocmments list, I think.
15:11:12 [Andrew]
zakim, ? is Andrew
15:11:12 [Zakim]
+Andrew; got it
15:11:23 [Norm]
Present: Alessandro, Paul, Norm, Mohamed, Henry, Richard, Alex, Rui, Andrew
15:11:33 [Norm]
Mohamed: Where are we on the test suite?
15:12:23 [Norm]
Norm: I'm generating new ones as I work through my impl; I encourage others to send them in using the test format.
15:13:06 [Norm]
Some discussion of the test suite.
15:15:17 [Norm]
ACTION: Norm to arrange for the tests on tests.xproc.org to be in Subversion so that anyone can update them.
15:15:31 [Norm]
Topic: Comment 30: Parameter inputs as strings
15:15:31 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/lastcall/comments#030
15:16:22 [Norm]
Norm describes the issue. Is symphathetic.
15:16:52 [Norm]
Henry: I'm not sympathetic. I wish we could undo some of the architecture changes that XSLT has *already* imposed on us.
15:17:02 [Norm]
...I think parameters have ended up swamping what was otherwise a fairly clean design.
15:17:27 [alexmilowski]
+q
15:17:31 [Norm]
...Basically, my view is that this problem is the thin edge of a long and complicated issue dealing with inputs of an unknown arity.
15:18:02 [Norm]
...I can think of at least three ways to solve it and we'll need to do it in V.next. I'd rather not do it at the last minute for XSLT when we'll need to do it later.
15:18:26 [Norm]
Henry: I'm just skeptical of the whole thing; the cost-benefit ratio is hugely out of whack.
15:18:29 [Norm]
ack
15:18:32 [Norm]
ack alexmilowski
15:19:18 [Norm]
Alex: What XSLT really needs is a way to associate a name with a arbitrary input.
15:19:32 [Norm]
...We've removed arbitrary inputs so we'd have to invent some much more heavyweight mechanism to do that.
15:19:59 [Norm]
...I'm with Henry in some ways; I wonder if we should consider the ability to bind some number of documents with some number of names.
15:20:15 [Norm]
Henry: I think we can do it in V.next in any one of at least three ways as I outlined in email.
15:20:21 [Norm]
...It'll take time to think them through.
15:20:57 [richard]
q+
15:21:36 [Norm]
Norm and Henry discuss how some implementors allow for XSLT parameters to be bound to files.
15:22:21 [Norm]
Norm: You can work around this with a generated stylesheet, of course.
15:22:27 [Norm]
Henry: I don't think now is the time to design the general solution.
15:24:09 [Norm]
Alex: It allows documents in under the covers.
15:24:14 [ht]
q+ to ask about the api issue
15:24:24 [Norm]
Norm: I don't know what you mean by under the covers.
15:24:31 [Norm]
ack richard
15:24:57 [Norm]
Richard: XSLT says that its implementation defined how parameters get passed in from outside. AFAICT, there's no requirement accept any kind of parameters.
15:25:16 [Norm]
...Mine only allows you to pass in strings. For things that you run from the command line, there's no obvious way to pass in anything else.
15:25:35 [Norm]
...If we say this is going to work, that means you're saying your XSLT implementation has to be able to accept things that aren't strings.
15:25:41 [Norm]
...Otherwise you'll get interoperability problems.
15:25:43 [Norm]
ack ht
15:25:43 [Zakim]
ht, you wanted to ask about the api issue
15:26:32 [Norm]
Henry: At the moment if I write parameter name=foo select=.//pset[@foo=baz] I get an element node which gets stringed and I get a string.
15:26:47 [Norm]
...How will I tell if there's an attempt to pass something other than a string.
15:27:27 [Norm]
Richard: We'd have to change the language, saying that things selected don't get turned into strings so you have to use string(). There are several possibilities.
15:27:42 [Norm]
Zakim, who's on the phone?
15:27:42 [Zakim]
On the phone I see avernet, PGrosso, Norm, MoZ, Ht, richard, Alex_Milowski, ruilopes, Andrew
15:28:17 [Norm]
Straw poll: Do you support allowing non-string parameters?
15:29:09 [Norm]
Results: Y 4, N 4, C: 1
15:29:24 [Norm]
Norm: I don't see a consensus to make a change to the spec.
15:29:27 [Norm]
Propose: Not in V1.
15:29:34 [Norm]
No objections.
15:29:47 [Norm]
ACTION: Henry to reply to the commenter.
15:29:55 [Norm]
Topic: Comment 28: Determining whether a pipeline has a (defaulted) output
15:29:55 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/lastcall/comments#028
15:31:51 [Norm]
Scribe notes that the numbers got wrong.
15:32:26 [Norm]
Richard: Like Henry, I'd like very simple pipelines to be simple. So I don't want to have to put in input and output statements in those cases.
15:32:36 [Norm]
...I constructed a hard case, but I don't really want to throw out the mechanism.
15:33:23 [Norm]
Norm: I can see that, but I want a solution that doesn't require the depth of analysis that Richard's example would require.
15:33:48 [Norm]
There's some question of whether this only applies to pipelines in libraries.
15:34:17 [Norm]
Richard: Henry suggested that you might only be allowed to do this in the top-level pipeline. But that doesn't really help.
15:34:36 [Norm]
Alex: Couldn't we just outlaw circularity?
15:35:05 [Norm]
Richard: Yes, we could say that the only circumstance where you can't do it is the one where you can't figure it out.
15:35:13 [Norm]
...But simple recursion is allowed.
15:35:17 [Norm]
Zakim, mute PGrosso
15:35:17 [Zakim]
PGrosso should now be muted
15:35:23 [Norm]
PGrosso, we could hear you :-)
15:35:46 [Norm]
Alex: We could say that circularities must be explicitly broken. It's not straightforward to detect, but we coudl have a blanket statement about it.
15:36:19 [Norm]
Henry: The way it ends up working is that we revise the statement about how pipeline outputs default to say that they default to the output of the last contained step provided that that can be uniquivocally determined locally.
15:36:38 [Norm]
...Expanded slightly if necessary to make it clear.
15:36:57 [Norm]
Richard: If the last step isn't a call to a pipeline that doesn't have explicit outputs.
15:37:08 [Norm]
Henry: I don't think that stating that carefully will take more than two or three sentences.
15:37:19 [Norm]
Richard: I'm not sure that this will turn out to be the case.
15:37:30 [Norm]
Alex: Yeah, I'm not sure it can be done locally.
15:38:03 [Norm]
Henry: My proposal is fairly radical: maybe it'll be confusing but, I would say: you have to have explicit not-calling-other-pipeline steps in every place where you have to look.
15:38:19 [Norm]
Richard: It mustn't be a pipeline.
15:38:28 [Norm]
Henry: Yes. That's the minimum to declare victor.
15:38:34 [Norm]
s/victor/victory/
15:38:46 [Norm]
Alex: I'm confused. Every step has a declaration...
15:39:16 [Norm]
Alex: Think about a processor that's building step declarations. You'd have to flag the ones that come from pipelines.
15:39:22 [Norm]
Richard: But you haven't determined the declaration of another pipeline
15:39:30 [Norm]
Alex: In this case, yes, but ...
15:41:03 [Norm]
ACTION: Henry to craft the prose to cover this case.
15:41:16 [Norm]
Topic: Comment 1: An unfulfilled requirement maybe? (p:exec)
15:41:16 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/lastcall/comments#001
15:42:19 [Norm]
Norm: In principle, do we want to do this?
15:42:41 [Norm]
Richard: This is something who's effect is completel system dependent.
15:42:46 [Norm]
Norm: Yes.
15:42:58 [ht]
q+ to talk about / conversion
15:43:38 [Norm]
ack ht
15:43:38 [Zakim]
ht, you wanted to talk about / conversion
15:44:05 [Norm]
Henry: I think there are two or three details here, but I'm happy to wait until we have a draft.
15:44:09 [Norm]
...What about serialization?
15:44:12 [Norm]
...What about the working directory?
15:44:33 [Norm]
...We need to do / conversion
15:44:45 [Norm]
s/conversion/conversion in file paths/
15:45:23 [Norm]
ACTION: Norm and Alex to craft a proposal.
15:46:30 [richard]
this is an optional step, right?
15:47:55 [Norm]
yes
15:49:02 [Norm]
Topic: Comment 6: Bindings for pipeline inputs
15:49:02 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/lastcall/comments#006
15:49:49 [Norm]
Norm summarizes the thread.
15:50:06 [Norm]
Henry: I think the defaulting semantics is a little tricky to specify clearly. But I do absolutely want to have pipelines with fixed inputs.
15:50:29 [Norm]
Richard: That's quite different from defaulting input then you don't need any syntax at all. You just make the first step read from a constant source.
15:51:00 [Norm]
Henry: That inclines me even further towards the position that this is more confusion that it's worth. We don't have any use cases for it.
15:51:34 [Norm]
Henry: I'm particuarly unhappy with Norm's answer to Richard's question about how it works when you call a named pipeline.
15:52:45 [Norm]
Norm isn't sure if he was clear
15:52:53 [Norm]
Alex: I can see this going either way.
15:53:51 [Norm]
Alex: Do we say what happens in the pipeline case. You can have a step that has an unbound input. But pipelines can have bindings that go with them. When you use a named pipeline, it can use that binding.
15:54:56 [Norm]
Richard: If you put a call to a pipeline in, and you don't ...
15:55:18 [Norm]
Norm: Maybe it's too confusing.
15:56:05 [Norm]
Richard: The only trace where this even arises is in the place where it says that pipeline inputs can be defaulted.
15:56:52 [Norm]
Norm: I suggest we take this one to email and leave it for a week.
15:57:01 [Norm]
Henry: I encourage Alex to write up what he saw as the use for that.
15:57:39 [Norm]
Alex: Now that I think about it some more, I don't think we need this at all.
15:58:39 [Norm]
Topic: Comment 23: p:add-xml-base with relative=true
15:58:39 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2007/09/lastcall/comments#023
15:59:31 [Norm]
Norm: Do you change an absolute xml:base to relative?
16:00:15 [Norm]
Anyone think we should change xml:base attributes?
16:00:58 [Zakim]
-PGrosso
16:01:09 [Norm]
No.
16:04:15 [Zakim]
-MoZ
16:04:54 [Norm]
Some discussion of whether or not a step with an xml:base attribute can have a different base URI.
16:05:02 [Norm]
Alex: I think this step should make this explicit.
16:05:44 [Norm]
ACTION: Henry to attempt to improve the prose for p:add-xml-base
16:05:49 [Zakim]
-Ht
16:05:50 [Norm]
Topic: Any other business?
16:05:55 [Norm]
Adjourned.
16:05:58 [Zakim]
-Alex_Milowski
16:06:00 [Zakim]
-Andrew
16:06:01 [Zakim]
-Norm
16:06:03 [Zakim]
-ruilopes
16:06:04 [Zakim]
-richard
16:06:05 [Zakim]
-avernet
16:06:06 [Zakim]
XML_PMWG()11:00AM has ended
16:06:07 [Zakim]
Attendees were [IPcaller], PGrosso, avernet, Norm, MoZ, Ht, richard, Alex_Milowski, ruilopes, Andrew
16:06:07 [Norm]
RRSAgent, set logs world-visible
16:06:10 [Norm]
RRSAgent, draft minutes
16:06:10 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-minutes.html Norm
16:06:23 [PGrosso]
PGrosso has left #xproc
17:16:03 [Norm]
Norm has joined #xproc
17:48:01 [Norm]
Norm has joined #xproc
18:11:44 [Zakim]
Zakim has left #xproc
18:14:01 [Norm]
RRSAgent, bye
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
I see 6 open action items saved in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-actions.rdf :
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Alex to review before the face-to-face. [1]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T15-07-07
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Norm to arrange for the tests on tests.xproc.org to be in Subversion so that anyone can update them. [2]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T15-15-17
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Henry to reply to the commenter. [3]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T15-29-47
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Henry to craft the prose to cover this case. [4]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T15-41-03
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Norm and Alex to craft a proposal. [5]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T15-45-23
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Henry to attempt to improve the prose for p:add-xml-base [6]
18:14:01 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/10/04-xproc-irc#T16-05-44