RE: XSLT and Text Processing Languages

[Matthew Bentley <Matthew.bentley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> So my question is the following: Does anyone have any feedback of >when
and
>where they would recommend using XSL/T, instead of Omnimark or any >other
text
>processing language?

I've been using XSLT in place of Omnimark scripting, and in some places in
conjunction with Omnimark scripting.
Things which make XSLT better than Omnimark:
* No need to validate against a DTD
* Simpler language and syntax
* Easier to debug, largely due to lack of data structures
* ... its just plain neater.

However, I still use Omnimark for somethings before and after XSLT, such as:
* Converting from sgml empty tags to xml empty tags
* Replacing the ampersand ("&") in source data entity references with "$!$"
so that the pre-xslt xml parser doesn't try to resolve them.
* Converting the prolog of the sgml file to a different prolog.
* Converting the xml empty tags back to sgml empty tags.

>My Question is, since other text processing languages like Omnimark >are
>available, are most of the advantages of XSL/T processing realized >when
using
>XSL/T in connection with the browser at load time.  And if this is the
>case, is
>Microsoft's MSXML the answer?

No. XSLT is simply a great language for transforming xml data.
XSL:fo should also be quite significant, although I'm unaware if browsers
are going to start supporting it, once the recommendation gets through. And
in regards to MSXML - don't bother, yet. Its still got a little ways to go,
in my opinion.
-Matt
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