[xsl] My visual metaphor (was: What's your visual metaphor for XSL Transformations?)

[iwanttokeepanon <iwanttokeepanon@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/18/07, John Horner <Horner.John@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This may be a weird question, but what do you see in your mind's eye
> when you imagine an XSL transformation happening?

I know this thread is a month old, but I'm just getting caught up on some
of my lists and I wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

One way I visualize it is... wait, first this is NOT strictly correct but it
is an imaginative way to see it ... remember the movie "Beautiful Mind"?
John Nash would be looking at some newspapers and words would blink
and highlight, sometimes quite rapidly.  Substitute stylesheets for
newspapers and templates for words.  Now as the XML flows through
the stylesheet the template rules "blink" (yellow maybe).  What you get
is an animated transformation.

Or, same idea different analogy, you are in space looking down on a
thunderstorm.  You see the clouds, but different areas are lighted up
by lightening strikes.  Very beautiful footage to watch really.  So, same
as above, imagine that the lightening is template rules being matched as
you XML flows down through the clouds.

I don't know if I adequately explained that, but my visualization is less
*technical* than some of the others.  I don't rely on it to explain to me
what to code next.  But more of a way to visualize the beauty of the
language itself.

--
Rodman