Re: [xsl] Need 3 good reasons why XSLT is better than JSP+Velocity

Subject: Re: [xsl] Need 3 good reasons why XSLT is better than JSP+Velocity
From: "Kurt Cagle" <cagle@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:57:54 -0800
All good. A few more -

1) Portability. I have moved my XSLT based sites from IIS on Win2K to
Apache/Jakarta on Win2K and Linux to Perl on Linux with very little change
in the XSLT content.

2) Developer Buy-in. Believe it or not, not everyone uses Velocity (for that
matter, not altogether that many people use JSP). To me it seems
syntactically a little better than the JSP architecture (at least I can
generate it as XML, if I'm careful), but it has a very small segment of the
total mind-share of even servlet developers.

3) YEPL - Any language that binds presentation with output places fairly
strong limitations of the Model/View/Controller architecture. XSLT is not
immune from this, of course, but  I can in fact use multiple pass XSLT to
make the coupling very weak. Velocity seems to me more like a cleaned up
version of what JSP was intended to be.

Oh, and a fourth -

4) Namespaces. As languages such as SVG becoming more commonplace inline,
you're going to find that being able to  better control the multiplicity of
namespaces with something like XSLT than with a specifically dedicated
procedural language, especially since XSLT does have the recursive
advantage. Namespace support requires some real hoop jumping in Velocity.

And a fifth -

5) XSLT 2.0 is coming, and the first drafts that I've seen of that language
look VERY exciting. The ability to functionally define XPath 2.0 functions
for instance, the more complete xsl:document elements, support for regular
expressions and a number of other features make XSLT 2.0 quite formidable.
What's even better, you don't need to know a complex set of object models,
don't have to play the ugly game of trying to make sure you have all of the
right classes in the right place, and can use a more advanced model for
inheritance to support much richer applications than you can with XSLT 1.0.

As to your JSP dev friends - they will continue to push the Java view of the
world, just as Microsoft will push .NET, but in many ways both of these
technologies represent the LAST of the object oriented programming paradigm,
rather than the first of an XML Relational Programming Paradigm that seems
to be emerging quietly all over the place.

-- Kurt Cagle
-- Author, Programming SVG, Spring 2002
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kovach, Dave" <dave.kovach@xxxxxxx>
To: <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 2:12 PM
Subject: RE: [xsl] Need 3 good reasons why XSLT is better than JSP+Velocity


> 1. A group could build their own Velocity/framework or templating system
> using XSLT that is more specific to their project or application.
>
> 2. Rid of JSP's altogether and use XSLT/XHTML bolted to a Servlet engine
> running with Saxon (or another XSLT engine) - JSP's can be discarded (dont
> have to be, but could be)
>
> 3. XSLT works non-procedurally and does its magic recursively. This is the
> win. Much data that is trapped in DBMS's doesn't need to be - so many
things
> we put there are hierarchical by nature not relational and XSLT is suited
> like NO OTHER to handle and present this info in various ways (VIEWS) to
> various devices - all by changing some XSLT code in an XSL stylesheet.
How,
> it works through XML data or properly structured info can not be
replicated
> anywhere - not via a Velocity structure or anything.
>
> (sounds like the typical, developers holding tightly onto what
> they know and how they already do things - is good enough. But,
> XSLT was built for XML... JSP and Servlets (much less Velocity)
> were not)
>
>
> David Kovach
> SAP Labs
> Palo Alto, CA
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wes Lagrone [mailto:WLagrone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 5:21 AM
> To: XSL-List@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [xsl] Need 3 good reasons why XSLT is better than JSP+Velocity
>
>
> Wondering if anyone could shed light on a debate I've been having with
> web developers.
>
> If the source content for my web site is a stack of XML files, XSLT
> seems like the obvious choice to assemble, format and generate the
> output XHTML pages.
>
> But many web developers tell me that they'd rather use Velocity
> templates in conjunction with JSP to accomplish the same thing, whether
> the source content comes from flat XML files, an XML repository, or an
> Oracle database.  They know Java, they argue, so why bother with XSLT?
>
> So I'm looking for three good reasons why they're wrong.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Wes
>
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>
>


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