[Speed] XSpec runs too slow for TDD

[cmarchand]

When developing - or debuging - in Test Driven Development, you need a very fast run of your unit tests : less than 10s.

Starting ant needs a JVM start, an important library run, evaluating the build.xml, then compile XSL (the one from XSpec framework), generate XSL, compile it and run it. All of those things are slow.

If we could avoid starting a JVM, parsing the build.xml, compile framework's XSL, it could be much better. But it won't be anymore available from command line !

There is no action required from framework, I think it is quite efficient. But the machinery around could be better.

What do you think of a Java library, that will embed all the compiled framework, and that could be directly call from an IDE, a maven plugin, or anything else written in Java ? This will require Saxon-EE to compile it, or to use XSL-based Saxon compiler, but it seems to be feasible...

[AirQuick]

I haven't measured it, but it seems to me that the fastest practical way available right now to run XSpec tests in the course of stylesheet development is running "XSpec for XSLT using XProc" transformation scenario on Oxygen, probably because it involves no JVM startup.

[cmarchand]

Yes, it is much faster than invoking the ant scenario.
I'm gonna put 2 cents on this, just a small test...