Re: [xsl] XSLT Hello World - outreach

Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT Hello World - outreach
From: David Rudel <fwqhgads@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:24:06 +0100
On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 2:15 AM, Liam R E Quin <liam@xxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Ideas welcome.

Would it make sense to start with considering what prevents people
from using XSLT for projects that yearn for it? I have a very limited
view on what this is, but from what I can tell, there are basically 3
things:

A. A misguided CW as to XSL's ability based on XSLT 1.0
B. The purely psychological antipathy engendered by its XML format.
Some people prefer programming languages that look more like English.
C. (In some sense reverse to B): the purely psychological antipathy
caused by its verbosity: Some people prefer magic variables and
ultra-pithy instructions, and use the ternary operator all the time...
they see an XSLT Script, and even before their eyes glaze over from
the XML notation, their brain shuts down from thinking of all the
typing they are going to have to do.

(IMO C is just silly... even aside from IDE help, I spend a lot more
of my time QAing and debugging a script than actually typing the
thing.)

I wonder how hard it would be to create some limited "Pretty XSLT"
variant that used more eye-friendly syntax and was converted to real
XSLT through parsing.

-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.

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