Why isn't Xalan more closely related to Xerces?

["Kilpatrick, Cliff" <ck...@CSA.com>]

I am writing with a question that all of my associates have faced when trying to use xerces together with xalan.  Why aren't the source trees more closely related?  It takes hours of time and a lot of energy to get Xalan to compile and link.  After two days of focusing on it I finally called it a day.  It was quite a shock to learn I spent the first day wasting my time trying to link xalan with the current version of xerces which I've had on my development system for several days.
 
Not to be all negative I was quite pleased with how easily it set up on my windows workstation.  Why haven't you used automake and autoconf to their fullest?  I've installed a lot of applications on our Sun E450 with almost no problems.
 
I also think that Xalan and Xerces are the best tools available in the open source market.  I found the api easy to use and very functional.  Unfortunately, because of the difficulty in setting up Xalan, I'm going to have to find another tool because my company has 3 Dec-Alphas and 4 Solaris systems with a variety of configurations.  I can't spend 2-3 days on each machine trying to set up a third party library.  It's ridiculous.
 
If there is any way I can help other than complaining, please let me know.  I would be happy to offer some of my time to help with creating a more robust package.  I am an experienced C, C++, Java programmer with 4years of Computer Science under my belt and 6 years of industry experience working for various internet/publishing companies.

Cliff Kilpatrick, Software Engineer 

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts 
7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 600 
Bethesda, MD, 20814 

ph: 301.961.6787 
em: ckilpatrick@csa.com 

 

Re: Why isn't Xalan more closely related to Xerces?

[Sal Mangano <sa...@morganstanley.com>]

Cliff,

I actually had just the opposite experience. I have built xalan/xerces for both Sun and Windows platforms and found it trivial to do. The only potential gotcha I experienced was that latest release Xalan wants to build against 1.6 Xerces rather than 1.7. Bu that is documented. I don't think it would be possible to mandate that the libraries have to be released in lock step. It might be nice to have a single tar/zip file that packaged the dependent components together. 

Other than that I have found Xalan trivial to build. What specifically were your problems?

p.s. I am not part of the Xalan/Xerces development team so this is an unbiased view!

Regards,
Sal 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Kilpatrick, Cliff 
  To: xalan-dev@xml.apache.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 3:13 PM
  Subject: Why isn't Xalan more closely related to Xerces?


  I am writing with a question that all of my associates have faced when trying to use xerces together with xalan.  Why aren't the source trees more closely related?  It takes hours of time and a lot of energy to get Xalan to compile and link.  After two days of focusing on it I finally called it a day.  It was quite a shock to learn I spent the first day wasting my time trying to link xalan with the current version of xerces which I've had on my development system for several days.

  Not to be all negative I was quite pleased with how easily it set up on my windows workstation.  Why haven't you used automake and autoconf to their fullest?  I've installed a lot of applications on our Sun E450 with almost no problems.

  I also think that Xalan and Xerces are the best tools available in the open source market.  I found the api easy to use and very functional.  Unfortunately, because of the difficulty in setting up Xalan, I'm going to have to find another tool because my company has 3 Dec-Alphas and 4 Solaris systems with a variety of configurations.  I can't spend 2-3 days on each machine trying to set up a third party library.  It's ridiculous.

  If there is any way I can help other than complaining, please let me know.  I would be happy to offer some of my time to help with creating a more robust package.  I am an experienced C, C++, Java programmer with 4years of Computer Science under my belt and 6 years of industry experience working for various internet/publishing companies.
  Cliff Kilpatrick, Software Engineer 

  Cambridge Scientific Abstracts 
  7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 600 
  Bethesda, MD, 20814 

  ph: 301.961.6787 
  em: ckilpatrick@csa.com