FYI, after writing the first of the three letter mentioned above, I
contacted Andrew Layman at MS and offered to help make MSXML completely
portable without performance sacrifices. Both he and Chris Lovett liked the
idea and we worked hard to make it happen over a weekend. There was never
any hesitation from them about this effort and I am convinced that there was
absolutely no ill will from them regarding peculiar 'features' of MSXML.
They thought they were neat features and got their ears chewed off for it.
All they needed was a gentle reminder instead of the slap they got. Let us
not mix conspiracy theory with our judgement.
WORA version of MSXML is coming soon from Microsoft. It will compile and
run on any Java platform. It will take advantage of native libraries if
available without recompilation. Its WORA without sacrifices. Its WORA-FOW
(Write Once, Run Anywhere - Faster On Windows ;-p).
Don