Live data from Hacker News

Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

github.com

51–60 of 114 posts

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#51

I mean some people working on Chrome tried to remove XSL support at some point: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514995 which was already nuts, so they are clearly not interested in anything related to XML. XML is a fantastic tool, it's just that a whole generation of developers refused to even touch it and are biased against it. And since Chrome is now basically the web... wait til there is only…

I dont know, i think im biased against it because i have touched it (even of xslt is quite cool)

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#52
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ll do it to themselves. One thing I see regularly is Chrome’s web caching being so aggressive it is driving front-end developers to start using FF for dev. We simply need to stand back and let time take its course.

Does Chrome no longer have the option to disable cache while dev tools is open?

It sure does and it works, not sure how or what use case the parent has problems with. Would be quite interesting to find out.

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#53
post #51

I mean some people working on Chrome tried to remove XSL support at some point: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514995 which was already nuts, so they are clearly not interested in anything related to XML. XML is a fantastic tool, it's just that a whole generation of developers refused to even touch it and are biased against it. And since Chrome is now basically the web... wait til there is only…

I dont know, i think im biased against it because i have touched it (even of xslt is quite cool)

I changed my opinion of XML after I had to deal with yaml.

Whoever thought it is a good idea for complex configs (kubernetes) was wrong

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#54
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't just vote no. They basically said they're not implementing it even if everyone else votes yes.

Like my mother used to say: if all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?

https://xkcd.com/1170/

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#55
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know, i think im biased against it because i have touched it (even of xslt is quite cool)

I changed my opinion of XML after I had to deal with yaml. Whoever thought it is a good idea for complex configs (kubernetes) was wrong

> Whoever thought it is a good idea for complex configs (kubernetes) was wrong

Kinda agree, YAML is a mess wrt. many aspects.

> I changed my opinion of XML after I had to deal with yaml.

I still didn't change my opinion about XML, it is similar a mess wr. many aspects.

For both there is a sane sub-set which isn't a mess and which looks reasonable fine. Sadly this subset has not necessary clear borders.

So I guess a sub-set of XML, i.e. XML reinvented in 2020 would probably be better then YAML. But then you could also do a YAML reinvented in 2020 ;=)

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#56
The European Securities and Exchange Commission (ESMA) has just now mandated all listed companies in the EU to publish their annual financial statements in XHTML instead of PDF or paper. Combined with XBRL taxonomies it’s a very powerful structured format. Please don’t forget that XML is widespread in business applications and I haven’t seen any similar powerful replacement for XML validation and XPath. Please let me know if you know one.

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#57

For those replying with "XML is bad and therefore Google is right", reading the whole thread presents a more complex picture. Quoting from various comments in that thread, > this is a proposal for querying the HTML DOM with XPath, not XML. > Per https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/popularity it does seem that about 1-2% of page views end up using XPath One could argue whether a feature that has existed for o…

1-2% of page views is pretty massive!

Consider adjusting this number to remove any Google sites that are viewed (to remove Google's own bias/quasi browser monopoly) - and it probably goes up a lot more even.

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#58

Safari tends to be slow to implement features, but they rarely outright reject implementing a feature. Google Chrome hasn't implemented MathML yet, even though Firefox and Safari have: https://caniuse.com/mathml

I think that’s misleading since Safari’s development is not generally discussed outside the occasional WebKit blog post and the rare Safari developer on Twitter who may or may not rightfully ignore any questions/arguments.

A lot of features are implemented late and incorrectly. I think that the first Safari version that supported PWAs was so broken that many had to manually exclude the browser in their support detection code.

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#59
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Chrome no longer have the option to disable cache while dev tools is open?

It sure does and it works, not sure how or what use case the parent has problems with. Would be quite interesting to find out.

Oh, it's fine keeping the development tools open for local dev, but then it seems like developers (usually more junior) will get spooked when they open the application in a new tab, loading from the test server, and their changes appear to not have been built out, or only half built out. It causes some confusion, and I often need to remind others that if they are using Chrome, to please clear their cache.

The other thing that I should have mentioned is with non-dev staff. When new builds and updates get pushed out, they often have problems because of Chrome's aggressive caching. This group isn't as privy to knowing about developer tools and chaching, and it is highly frustrating and annoying for them. It seems like they will still use Chrome for casual browsing, but then start to use Firefox or Safari for testing builds.

I use Firefox 100% of the time and very very rarely have these kinds of issues.

All I can say is that something is seriously wrong with Chrome's caching policy, from a UX perspective. People do get frustrated in ways that they don't when using Safari or Firefox.

Re: Chrome unlikely to support XPath 3.1

#60
post #45

I feel like a real dummy right now... Aren't modern web pages xhtml??? Isn't xhtml xml??? Removing support for XPath kills MANY tests. I feel like a crazy person. Can someone help with context?

No, xhtml died.

Pages are html and not neccessary xml compatible.

XPath is used for html independent of xml (because the structure is very similar and as such querying html with xml based query systems can work).

But for google it's part of their xml code base they don't want to touch.

Post reply on HN