On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:09 AM, Ihe Onwuka <ihe.onwuka@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> but Graydon ...the problem here is "hello world"....
>
> Here's Alan Kay http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
>
> Somewhere on that page is the quotation
>
> "Simple things should be simple complex things should be possible"

Piecing together a few different things you have said in different
threads and in different posts, I realize what you mean is "We are
talking about extracting test from a node, which should be as simple
as 'Hello World' for XSLT."

If that is true, then I would say once again that it is simple in XSLT:

<xsl:value-of select="(path to node)"/>

Again, none of these dialogues arising from "text()" have anything to
do with simple things being complex. They have to do with a frequently
misused construct in the language.

Here "misused" doesn't mean "will give the wrong answer most of the
time."  Here "misused" means "should be avoided because
A. There is a better way to do it.
B. Occasionally in some contexts and with some inputs, it will give
unexpected/undesirable results."

Using that understanding of "misused," I would say all modern
languages have frequently misused constructions.

-David



-- 

"A false conclusion, once arrived at and widely accepted is not
dislodged easily, and the less it is understood, the more tenaciously
it is held." - Cantor's Law of Preservation of Ignorance.