Re: [xsl] XSLT Hello World - outreach

[Ihe Onwuka <ihe.onwuka@xxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding B, this is a query that gets data out of a JSON repository

[{
        "type": "/music/album",
        "name":null,
        "artist":{"id":"/en/bob_dylan"},
        "limit":3
      }]','cursor

is looks nothing like English but I do non expect to hear howls of
protest from programmers that it doesn't.

Personally I believe people don't like what they don't understand and
programmers are adept at putting up all kinds of barriers that
camouflage that.  I would not put any outreach effort into them. Those
that want to use the language will choose to do so.



On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 5:24 PM, David Rudel <fwqhgads@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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.