Abel Braaksma <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Strange, you appear to be quite a Java expert yourself. Is that your 
> book? I wonder, because the basis of any Java app (and Windows app, for 
> that matter, but they call it DLL Hell) is getting the classpath 
> straight. Though imho, that goes almost automatically (but I can't speak 
> for the Mac)
>
> On Unix, there's another huge problem: you never know what linked 
> libraries there are and often you have to build from the sources to get 
> it right for your flavor of Unix. Hardly an ideal system for an average 
> user.
>
> I agree that every system has its flaws, I just don't consider it fair 
> considering the whole system bad just by having some bad experience with 
> one app. I don't throw away my Mac because I can't get my video camera 
> connected, and I am neither calling it a bad system. It just is 
> incapable of installing a custom driver.
>
> "It's not a good system" sounds quite out of place here. Having tens of 
> millions of happy users (of which a lot are, luckily, criticists too) 
> being able to easily use the splendid and well thought-of classpath and 
> lib path system (it never gave me any trouble either), should make you 
> wonder why the heck it is so hard for you.

Hang on. I make a living building java apps for people as well (at
least I used to) and I prefer xsltproc as well.

Why? Because xsltproc is part of my operating system. When it isn't I
can install it with the local package management tool. The windows
binary version works really well as well.

Whereas everytime I use saxon I have to spend 10 minutes working it
all out.



>> Is it Sun's fault, not Dr. Kay's? Yes. Does that mean Saxon doesn't 
>> have this problem? No.
>
> Not agreed, because you neglect the fact that Saxon comes in two 
> flavors: .NET and Java. So, even if you are amongst the group of people 
> that loath Java (as there is this seemingly small group that loathes 
> Windows, or .NET, or Perl, or PHP or MySQL etc) you can still use it. 
> And .NET can be used with MONO on any Unix flavor (not tried it
> though).

It's not that. The documentation isn't great and it doesn't try very
hard to do the right thing.

For example, you should be able to run saxon just with a jar, eg:

  java -jar saxon.jar my.xslt myinput.xml

but the last time I tried it wasn't possible.

If these things were done then people like Elliotte and myself would
use saxon more.

-- 
Nic Ferrier
http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk   for all your tapsell ferrier needs