Re: XSLTC

[Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>]

"Durrant, Peter" wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> There has been a lot of interest recently in XSLTC regarding the potential
> performance improvements for transformations. I was wondering what is
> happening regarding integrating XSLTC into Cocoon?

This is a good question. I currently have no information to share. Maybe
Jacek has more.

> I saw a note recently from Stefano ([STATUS] Cocoon Roadmap) that said:
> 
>     There are a few compliance bugs to sort out,
>     but we are confident that we'll be able to
>     ship Cocoon with XSLTC in the near future (if
>     not in 2.0.2, for sure in 2.0.3)
> 
> We were thinking of using XSLTC for some of our work with Cocoon -- is it
> easy to integrate the two, or will it require some changes to Cocoon? 

Jacek was telling me that we might need to add a few lines to the
TraxTransformer, but this is just for better compatibility with the TRaX
API. In general no, we don't need to implement any changes to Cocoon.

> What
> I'm really asking: is it possible to use XSLTC in Cocoon now or should I
> wait? With 2.0.2 coming soon, will XSLTC be a component then or in 2.0.3?

The current issue we face are:

 1) There are two versions of XSLTC: the one included in Xalan CVS which
doesn't work with Cocoon (many bugs) and the one you find at
www.ambrosoft.com which was modified by jacek but only the binaries are
available (but this *does* work with Cocoon, at least partially)

 2) Jacek has been much more interested in making XSLTC running with
Cocoon than the Xalan community (sorry people, but this is a fact).
Unfortunately, Jacek has been much less interested in making his patches
available to the Xalan community, for reasons that were never explicitly
expressed.

So we have one version that doesn't work but we have the sources and one
version that works but we don't have the sources.
 
And, to be honest with you, I don't have a clue on how to disengage this
deadlock :(

> I've followed instructions provided on this newsgroup for installing XSLTC
> into Tomcat/Cocoon but we haven't been able to get those to work (not
> consistently anyway). Is that similar to other peoples experience of using
> XSLTC and Cocoon together?

Yes, there is still lot of work to do.

My personal impression (no offense intended) is that the current Xalan
XSLTC is a proof of concept and was never tested in a seriously
stressing environment like, for example, Cocoon.

I would personally love to work with the Xalan people to address all the
issues that XSLTC has with Cocoon, but their interest in making this
happening has been, in my eyes, cold.

But anyway, if my impressions were wrong, or something changed from this
picture, please let us know.

Thanks.

-- 
Stefano Mazzocchi      One must still have chaos in oneself to be
                          able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org>                             Friedrich Nietzsche
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