IRC log of xproc on 2006-06-01

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:52:08 [RRSAgent]
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logging to http://www.w3.org/2006/06/01-xproc-irc
14:52:42 [rlopes]
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14:53:29 [Alessandro]
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14:53:52 [Norm]
Meeting: XML Processing Model WG
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Scribe: Norm
14:53:52 [Norm]
ScribeNick: Norm
14:53:52 [Norm]
Date: 1 Jun 2006
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Chair: Norm
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Agenda: http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2006/06/01-agenda.html
14:55:56 [PGrosso]
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14:56:45 [MoZ]
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14:57:16 [MoZ]
Zakim, what is the code?
14:57:16 [Zakim]
sorry, MoZ, I don't know what conference this is
14:57:39 [MoZ]
Zakim, this will be xproc
14:57:39 [Zakim]
ok, MoZ; I see XML_PMWG()11:00AM scheduled to start in 3 minutes
14:57:46 [MoZ]
Zakim, what is the code?
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the conference code is 97762 (tel:+1.617.761.6200), MoZ
14:58:25 [Zakim]
XML_PMWG()11:00AM has now started
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+Norm
14:58:40 [Zakim]
+moz
14:58:41 [Zakim]
-moz
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+moz
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+[IPcaller]
14:59:14 [rlopes]
zakim, [ip is Rui
14:59:14 [Zakim]
+Rui; got it
14:59:19 [Zakim]
+Alessandro_Vernet
15:00:04 [Zakim]
+[ArborText]
15:00:36 [ht]
zakim, please call ht-781
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ok, ht; the call is being made
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+Ht
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+??P22
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zakim, ? is richard
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+richard; got it
15:03:04 [AndrewF]
AndrewF has joined #xproc
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+??P25
15:03:46 [AndrewF]
zakim, ? is AndrewF
15:03:46 [Zakim]
+AndrewF; got it
15:44:59 [PGrosso]
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xml-processing-model-wg/2006May/0141.html
15:45:54 [MoZ]
to slow ...:(
15:46:08 [MoZ]
thx paul
15:59:57 [Zakim]
-Norm
15:59:58 [Zakim]
-Ht
15:59:58 [Zakim]
-richard
15:59:59 [Zakim]
-moz
16:00:01 [Zakim]
-PGrosso
16:00:02 [Zakim]
-Rui
16:00:03 [Zakim]
-Alessandro_Vernet
16:00:04 [Zakim]
-AndrewF
16:00:05 [PGrosso]
PGrosso has left #xproc
16:00:06 [Zakim]
XML_PMWG()11:00AM has ended
16:00:08 [Zakim]
Attendees were Norm, moz, [IPcaller], Rui, Alessandro_Vernet, PGrosso, Ht, richard, AndrewF
16:00:34 [MoZ]
Zakim, who is on the phone?
16:00:34 [Zakim]
apparently XML_PMWG()11:00AM has ended, MoZ
16:00:35 [Zakim]
On IRC I see richard, MoZ, Alessandro, RRSAgent, Zakim, MSM, ht
16:06:01 [Norm]
Norm has joined #xproc
16:06:32 [Norm]
Presents: Norm, Mohamed, Rui, Alessando, Paul, Henry, Richard, Andrew
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Regrets: Murray, Michael
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Topic: Accept this agenda?
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-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2006/06/01-agenda.html
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Accepted.
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Topic: Accept minutes from the previous teleconference?
16:06:36 [Norm]
-> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2006/05/25-minutes.html
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Accepted.
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Topic: Next meeting: 8 June telcon
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Any regrets?
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None given.
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Topic: Face-to-face: 2-4 Aug 2006.
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Topic: Review of open action items
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1. A-22-01: Norm to create an issue to track xpath expressions over a sequence of documents
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Completed: Issue #3306
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2. A-13-01: MSM to draft a complete table; ETA: 15 June 2006
16:06:56 [Norm]
Continued
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Topic: Continuation of our syntax discussion
16:07:00 [Norm]
Richard: Can you summarize where we are wrt syntax?
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Norm tries
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Rui: There was one point when we said that variables can contain strings only.
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But that didn't seem to be a point of consensus. Jeni was about to make the
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content a nodeset, for example.
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Richard: Should we attempt to agree a version 0 where we say "no we're
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not having any of those" and then see where we get.
16:07:16 [Norm]
Norm: That seems reasonable to me. Do you have a proposal?
16:07:18 [Norm]
Richard: No, we don't have variables. We just have inputs, outputs,
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parameters. Parameters are strings. There's no scoping mechanism. Then
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we can discuss which things we add. This isn't what the spec will say,
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but it will help us get some things out of the way.
16:07:26 [Norm]
Norm: A concrete syntax for this?
16:07:28 [Norm]
Richard: Yes. Then we could have some implementations of it.
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Norm: I really want to know where XPath expressions fit in.
16:07:34 [Norm]
Richard: I was going to suggest no XPath at all, parameters are
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constant strings.
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... Then discussions of XPaths will involve proposals to change that
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existing syntax.
16:07:42 [Norm]
Norm: What do others think about this approach?
16:07:44 [Norm]
Paul: I'm always for simplification.
16:07:49 [Norm]
Alessandro: If we do that, will we have to back-track if we want to go
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to a syntax that allowed XPath.
16:07:50 [Norm]
Richard: Maybe.
16:07:52 [Norm]
Alessandro: So maybe we want to make a decision early on about XPath.
16:07:54 [Norm]
Henry: As long as we don't let this out into the wild too much, or we all
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solemnly swear that backward incompatibilities with this syntax won't have
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any impact on our future decisions, I think it'd be ok. I don't think it's
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a mistake.
16:08:02 [Norm]
Richard: I was not suggesting that any version 0 would exist for any
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purpose other than to help us consider what version 1 should be.
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Alternatively, if you think that's too simple, can we enumerate now
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which things we need to decide before we do a version zero.
16:08:25 [Norm]
Norm expresses that it was XPaths that were this feature in his personal
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explorations.
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Mohamed: I think that the way Jeni is exploring the use of XPath for
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conditionals is useful research. But the fear I have is that at the
16:08:28 [Norm]
moment the XPath using is augmenting the power of XPath by adding new
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functions. For example, count on sequences. Some of this are extremely
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needed. We have to focus on the problem of speaking about sequences of
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documents and how we handle this type.
16:08:36 [Norm]
Norm: I propose that XPath over a sequence is an error.
16:08:38 [Norm]
Richard: You can do it in XPath 1.0 (using union of document()s for example).
16:08:40 [Norm]
These are separable. If the contexts were always given by a pipe going into
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the component, then if the sequence was a sequence you'd get a context
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nodeset consisting of those nodes.
16:08:48 [Norm]
Mohamed: But if you do $a|$b, you lose the order. It's a set. Maybe we
16:08:50 [Norm]
have to say that it's a set and not a sequence.
16:08:52 [Norm]
Norm: I still think we might get away with calling it an error.
16:08:56 [Norm]
Richard: You can certainly work around it with other standard components
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if we made it an error.
16:09:00 [Norm]
Norm: Yes, you can certainly work around it.
16:09:02 [Norm]
Richard: And a future version could allow them.
16:09:04 [Norm]
Norm, carrying Jeni's proxy, attempts to argue for Jeni's position
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that we should allow the variable syntax reference to documents.
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Some discussion of how much work it is to analyze the expressions.
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Doesn't really require a full XPath parser, but does require care with
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quoted strings.
16:09:16 [Norm]
Richard: Use of variables there would suggest that that's how they should
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be used everywhere.
16:09:20 [Norm]
Norm: I'm not sure I want arbitrary XPath expressions in ref=.
16:09:22 [Norm]
Richard: If what you say is a document is ref="$name", then you're
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saying that the value of ref is an XPath referring to a document.
16:09:26 [Norm]
Then you might expect to say ref="document('http://...')".
16:09:28 [Norm]
Alessandro: XPath doesn't have a document() function, that's from XSLT.
16:09:30 [Norm]
Richard: It would also lead people to believe that you could just use
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part of the output with ref="$foo/something".
16:09:34 [Norm]
Norm: I think we'd have to say that ref is a bare label or that ref is
16:09:36 [Norm]
a single variable reference. Either way we violate the principle of
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least surprise, but I'm not sure what else we can do.
16:09:40 [Norm]
Richard: I'm happy to go with the variable reference mechanism if
16:09:44 [Norm]
that's what the group wants, but I'm not enthusiastic about it. How
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about a straw poll?
16:09:48 [Norm]
Norm: Straw poll: documents by variable reference syntax, or some other
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syntax that limits XPath expressions to a single document. Is that clear?
16:09:52 [Norm]
(Not really)
16:09:54 [Norm]
Richard: Within XPath expressions, documents as dollar variables?
16:09:56 [Norm]
Richard: To clarify, saying "yes" is supporting what Jeni wants, right?
16:09:58 [Norm]
Henry: I'm not sure I understand the implications. Can we look at some
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email.
16:10:02 [Norm]
Alessandro: Jeni's relevant message is titled "How should variables be set?"
16:10:05 [Norm]
Richard: (Reading the mail) Option A: XPath expressions are evaluated
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over a single document. Option B: Expressions are evaluated with no
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context node, variables are used to refer to intermediate documents.
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(Paraphrased by the scribe who has no connectivity at the moment.)
16:10:16 [Norm]
Henry: I don't like either of these, I think this is the wrong level.
16:10:18 [Norm]
Is this meant to be the syntax that users write? This pushes aspect of
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the low-level syntax into the XPath in ways I don't like at all. We've
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said repeatedly that for simple straight-through pipelines, we
16:10:24 [Norm]
shouldn't require authors to know the names of any inputs and outputs.
16:10:26 [Norm]
If we achieve that goal, then none of these approaches will work
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because they require you to know the names of things.
16:10:30 [Norm]
Norm: Don't you think the simple case is that there are no xpath
16:10:32 [Norm]
expressions?
16:10:34 [Norm]
Henry: I should be able to use XPaths without having to add any other
16:10:36 [Norm]
mechanism. I think the 90% case for using XPaths will be to refer to
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the only document that there is in any given step. I don't see that as
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falling out of either of these proposals.
16:10:44 [Norm]
ACTION: Henry to describe an alternate proposal in email.
16:10:46 [Norm]
Richard: Have we considered the following: XPath's can't refer to any
16:10:48 [Norm]
documents except the documents that are input to the steps. It can
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refer to those by name.
16:10:52 [Norm]
Norm: We haven't considered that before, but I do like it.
16:10:54 [Norm]
Rui: If we do this, then we'll have steps with lots of inputs.
16:10:56 [Norm]
We'll have to pass all the documents we want to refer to as inputs.
16:10:58 [Norm]
This will make dependency analysis harder.
16:11:00 [Norm]
Richard: I don't understand. I'm expecting most of my steps not to have
16:11:02 [Norm]
any XPaths at all. Most of the ones that do are going to refer to a single
16:11:04 [Norm]
document. The case where there are multiple documents in a single XPath
16:11:06 [Norm]
seems like an edge case.
16:11:08 [Norm]
Rui: I think that they'll be used in conditionals and in debugging
16:11:10 [Norm]
parameters. If you close the domain of the access of the variable to
16:11:14 [Norm]
only what's in the input, you'll have to give a lot of inputs.
16:11:16 [Norm]
Richard: You were thinking of pipeline variables that you could set to
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these things. I was only thinking of this to deal with documents, not
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with constants.
16:11:22 [Norm]
Norm: I don't think the straw poll would be valuable, does anyone?
16:11:24 [Norm]
Paul: No, but we need actions if we're going to make progress.
16:11:26 [Norm]
Norm: Richard would you take an action to write a syntax proposal?
16:11:28 [Norm]
Richard: Yes.
16:11:30 [Norm]
ACTION: Richard to write a syntax proposal.
16:11:32 [Norm]
ACTION: Norm to write a syntax proposal.
16:11:34 [Norm]
Topic: Any other business?
16:11:36 [Norm]
None.
16:11:38 [Norm]
rrsagent, pointer
16:11:38 [RRSAgent]
See http://www.w3.org/2006/06/01-xproc-irc#T16-11-38
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rrsagent, make logs world-visbile
16:13:51 [Norm]
rrsagent, make logs world-visible
16:14:07 [Norm]
rrsagent, draft minutes
16:14:07 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2006/06/01-xproc-minutes.html Norm