Hi everyone,
This is to keep you updated with the current activities on XRules and
DynamicDOM. The last one and a half months were mostly focused on cleaning
up the code. It's a major undertaking since the XRules specifications went
through many major updates between the first version and now as it started
to take shape. And, the code went through the same major updates as I wanted
to be able to test every new change in the specs on real examples. This time
around, I'm getting valuable help in this effort from a brilliant
programmer, Rafid, who was also a great help in implementing the very first
version a couple of years ago. And, he's also my young brother. So this is
what we're working on right now: removing dead code, documenting each and
every method, standardizing on a consistent naming and coding style,
implementing robust exception handling, completing half-done features, and
many other fixes here and there.

Once this phase is complete, it'll set the stage for a few new
significant updates in the specs that have been on hold for a while -- most
are described in the "XRules Feature around the Corner" document. Things
like removing the <bind> rule and promoting all it's sub-rules into
first-class rules, conditional rulesets which was first raised by Leon back
in June, and the basic functionality of external data sources (or virtual
XML documents as it's called by XQuery) to address requirements brought up
by Pat in July.

I consider this phase the first step towards maturity for XRules and the
DynamicDOM. Surely, a lot more updates will follow, but at least the major
changes are now happening further apart and they are usually smaller than in
the early days. That, I believe, is a good sign.

Best regards,
Waleed